It does not seem that they were love letters, like the ones that former United States President Donald Trump says he exchanged with Kim Jong-un during his tenure. But those that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the North Korean leader have recently written to each other, according to Washington, do seem to have led to a similar result: a bilateral meeting. US government sources say that the Brilliant Comrade will travel to Russia to meet with the tenant of the Kremlin and discuss the sale of weapons for the war in Ukraine.
If confirmed, something that neither the Kremlin nor the North Korean news agency – which acts as a spokesperson – have yet done de facto of Kim – the North Korean leader’s visit would be his first outing abroad since the start of the pandemic, when North Korea closed its borders tightly and tightly more than three years ago. And it would signal a closer relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang.
It is an approach that worries Washington. On the one hand, the sale of North Korean arms would open up to Russia the possibility of new supplies abroad, alternatives to those that the US already believes it is receiving from Iran, and would give Moscow new encouragement at a time when the United States perceives a new impetus in Ukraine’s counter-offensive to retake territory taken by Russia. In return, North Korea could receive Russian military technology. On the other hand, the renewed friendship between the two would be a counterweight to the trilateral association that the US reinforced in August with South Korea and Japan.
The National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, pointed out this Tuesday at a press conference that so far no significant flow of North Korean weapons to Russia has been detected. And he has recalled that any type of movement in this sense would violate the resolutions of the UN Security Council. The United States “will continue to look for opportunities to deter North Korea” so that it does not sell weapons to the neighboring country, the senior official stressed. But he has also issued a stark warning to Pyongyang.
“Providing weapons to Russia for use in combat to attack grain warehouses and the heating infrastructure of large cities as winter approaches, to try to conquer territory belonging to another sovereign nation, is not going to make a good impression on Korea. of the North, and will pay the price for it before the international community”, warned the adviser.
The meeting between Putin and Kim, as announced on Monday The New York Times, it will be held during the summit of the Eastern Economic Forum that will take place in Vladivostok, in eastern Russia, between September 10 and 13. This meeting could imply that Kim was not in his country for the commemoration of the national day, on September 9. The North Korean leader would travel to Russia by armored train, his preferred method of traveling abroad. He already used the train in 2019 for his first and only meeting in person with Putin, also in that eastern city.
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The White House had alerted last week that Russia and North Korea were in talks for Pyongyang to supply ammunition and other military materials to the neighboring country. Those talks – assured the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby – had already advanced in recent weeks. To the point of reaching the level of heads of state: Putin and Kim exchanged letters in which they agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation.
Shoigu’s visit to Pyongyiang
The key moment, in the opinion of the US government, occurred with the visit of the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, to Pyongyang in July. On that visit, Kim Jong-un himself accompanied the head of the Russian military forces on a visit to a military fair. Shoigu invited the North Korean Supreme Leader to visit his country and, according to Kirby, “tried to convince Pyongyang to sell ammunition to Russia.” “Our information indicates that after that trip other Russian officials went to North Korea on a follow-up visit on possible arms sales deals to Russia,” the spokesman said.
“In those potential deals, Russia would receive significant quantities and multiple types of munitions from North Korea, which Russian forces plan to use in Ukraine. Those potential deals could also include the provision of raw materials that could help the Russian military industry” in the manufacture of equipment and weapons, Kirby added.
Another spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, has insisted in a statement that the “arms negotiations between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the official name of North Korea) are advancing” and the United States has ” information indicating that Kim Jong-un expects those talks to continue, to include diplomatic interactions in Russia at the leadership level.”
It is not the first time that Washington has accused North Korea of considering supplying ammunition to Moscow. It already did so this winter, although no evidence has ever been detected that these alleged plans of the Kim regime came to fruition. In fact, the US government believes that his warnings served to deter Pyongyang, at least temporarily. And it reminds Pyongyang that any arms supplies to Russia would be in “direct violation” of UN Security Council resolutions.
Following the estrangement between the two capitals after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of Moscow’s assistance to its neighbor, the Kim regime has become increasingly close to Moscow in recent years. Pyongyang supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has given its approval to Russia’s illegal annexations of provinces in the eastern Donbas region.
In part, this renewed friendship is based on a genuine affinity for the Putin way. And in part it is the result of a pragmatic calculation. North Korea seeks to avoid excessive dependence on China, its gigantic neighbor and main partner, and watches with alarm the renewed harmony in the Washington-Seoul-Tokyo triangle.
The arms talks will not necessarily lead to military collaboration between Moscow and Pyongyang, some experts say. It is true that one of Kim’s main objectives is to develop his military industry to maintain it as a deterrent against a possible US attack, after having succeeded in manufacturing nuclear warheads. In the last three years he has taken steps to develop hypersonic rockets and sea-to-ground nuclear missiles, and could benefit from a collaboration with Russia that would provide him with technological know-how. But his resources are limited, and while he’s managed to develop some cutting-edge technology—his past military parades of him have flaunted his intercontinental missiles—he can’t manufacture in large quantities.
“[Corea del Norte] It has relatively cutting-edge technology, it is true. But the most likely thing is that they will produce this type of weapon in small quantities, and the quality of this cutting-edge weaponry will, predictably, be inferior to the Russian one,” Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov points out to the NK News website, which specializes in Information about North Korea.
But in the game of mirrors and mirages that is often North Korean foreign policy, the mere perception in Washington (or in South Korea, or in Japan) of intensifying collaboration between Russia and North Korea is already a benefit for Pyongyang and its deterrence aspirations.
“North Korea has explicitly supported Russia and strengthened its ties with that country. Under these circumstances, the chances of the North and Russia cooperating in an arms pact are getting bigger and bigger,” a South Korean government source told the Yonhap news agency. This official has launched an appeal to Pyongyang to keep its contacts with Moscow within the limits of what is authorized by UN resolutions and international law: “Cooperation between North Korea and a neighboring country must be conducted, in all its forms , in a direction that does not harm international peace and order”.
In Moscow, the Kremlin limits itself to indicating that it cannot confirm and that it has nothing to say about the possible meeting. But on Monday, Shoigu recalled that the two countries are discussing the possibility of joint military exercises: “We talked about this issue with the whole world, including North Korea. Why not? They are our neighbors.”
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