– Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia
The North Korean leader arrived in Russia on Tuesday to meet with Vladimir Putin, who is reportedly seeking weapons for the war in Ukraine.
Published today at 12:22 a.m. Updated 3 hours ago
This photo taken on September 10, 2023 and released by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency on September 12, 2023 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he leaves Pyongyang by train for a visit to Russia.
AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un left Pyongyang on Sunday for Russia, where he is scheduled to meet President Vladimir Putin. He entered Russia on Tuesday, confirms the Russian agency Ria Novosti.
Kim Jong Un “departed on his train on Sunday afternoon to travel to the Russian Federation”, leading a delegation of senior officials from the government, armed forces and North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party , wrote the official North Korean news agency KCNA.
Experts say the trip to Vladivostok, in Russia’s far east, where an annual economic forum is being held, could be about an arms deal. Vladimir Putin is reportedly seeking to obtain North Korean weapons and ammunition for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. North Korea, for its part, would seek to obtain advanced technologies from Russia for its satellite and submarine program.
On Monday, KCNA announced that “respected Comrade Kim Jong Un will meet and hold discussions with Comrade Putin during his visit.” Moscow had also confirmed this planned visit, the second by the North Korean leader to Russia since he came to power in 2012. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov, however, assured Monday, before the official announcement of the trip, that No Kim-Putin meeting was planned as part of the Vladivostok economic forum.
“Begging” for help
Kim Jong Un had not left North Korea since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Kim Jong Il, father and predecessor of the current North Korean number 1, was afraid to take the plane . His son also favors rail for his rare trips abroad.
According to Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, Kim Jong Un lacks confidence in North Korean planes and maintains “concerns about the potential for air attacks from Washington.” The White House said on September 5 that Kim Jong Un wanted to see Vladimir Putin to discuss arms sales.
The Russian president, forced to “cross his entire country to meet a pariah on the international scene in order to ask him for help in a war he hoped to win in a month”, is thus reduced to “begging” from the North Korean leader, criticized the State Department on Monday.
Russia and North Korea have historic ties and Kim Jong Un has repeatedly expressed support to Moscow for its operations in Ukraine.
Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin University, said a Putin-Kim summit is part of Moscow’s “friendly diplomatic blackmail” against Seoul because Russia does not want the South Koreans supply weapons to Ukraine.
South Korea is in fact a major exporter of military equipment and has sold tanks to Poland, an ally of kyiv. But its long-standing domestic policy prohibits it from supplying weapons to parties engaged in real wars.
AFP
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2023-09-12 06:17:04
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