North Korean President Kim Jong Un with Russian President Vladimir Putin today.
Amur Region (Russia): Stating that his visit to Russia was taking place at a “very important time”, North Korean President Kim Jong Un today described the Russian aggression in Ukraine as Moscow’s “sacred battle to defend its state sovereignty and security in the face of the hegemonic forces that oppose Russia”.
According to Russian state media, Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin spent almost two hours in their one-on-one meeting as against the allotted 50 minutes, at the Vostochny Space Launch Centre here.
Kim said, “I also hope that we will always stand together in fighting imperialism and building a sovereign state”. He told Putin, “We are willing to continue to develop our relations. We have always supported and will continue to support every decision made by President Putin, as well as the decisions of the Russian Government”. He said that currently the relations with Russia “are the top priority for our country”, and expressed his confidence that his meeting with Putin “will serve as another step in elevating our relations to a new level”.
Putin and Kim had an “in-depth” discussion on the military-political situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Europe. Kim said, “We have come to a satisfactory consensus regarding the further strengthening of our strategic and tactical cooperation, mutual support and solidarity in the battle for our sovereign right to security and to create guarantees for lasting peace in the region and the world. We are confident that the Russian army and people will inevitably attain victory in the sacred struggle to punish the evil crowd, which claims the right to hegemony based on the illusion of expansionism, a struggle to create the stability needed for development”.
Earlier, after his arrival at Khasan, the border town of the Russian Federation, on the early morning of September 12, 2023, Kim remarked that his visit to the Russian Federation, the first foreign visit after the COVID-19 pandemic, “is a clear manifestation of the stand of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) prioritizing the strategic importance of the DPRK-Russia relations”.
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The United States apprehends that Putin would be interested in striking a deal on arms purchases from Kim, and has warned that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would violate multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. “It would be a sign of the desperate state in which the Russian Government finds itself a year and a half into this war that it has been prosecuting unsuccessfully against Ukraine. And we will monitor what happens and will not hesitate to take action to hold those accountable if necessary,” US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington last night (IST).
What was interesting was the venue chosen for the Putin-Kim meeting today. Putin said they were meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, “just as we agreed”. He said this sector was developing in Russia and this new facility “will be of interest to you and your colleagues”.
Both leaders inspected facilities at the new cosmodrome, including a booster assembly room for Angara launch vehicles, the launching site for the Soyuz-2 space launch vehicle, an Angara launching site under construction, and the launch control centre.
There are media speculations in the West that space exploration could be on the agenda for the meeting, particularly after North Korea’s two failed attempts. Last month, North Korea said it would persevere in its efforts to send a “space launch vehicle” into orbit.
Putin said, “Of course, we need to talk about our economic cooperation, humanitarian issues and the situation in the region. There are many issues we will discuss”.
– global bihari bureau
