As North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui visits Russia at the invitation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, attention is being paid to whether Russian President Putin’s visit to North Korea will be discussed.
According to North Korean media, including the Labor Party’s official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, on the 15th, Foreign Minister Choi departed Pyongyang the day before, on the 14th, with plans to visit Russia for three days from the 15th to the 17th.
This visit to Russia took place at the invitation of Minister Lavrov. This is a return visit to Minister Lavrov’s visit to North Korea in October last year.
The newspaper did not mention Foreign Minister Choi’s specific schedule, but holding a meeting between North Korean and Russian foreign ministers is expected to be a top priority. High-level talks between North Korea and Russia will be held again for the first time in three months.
At this meeting, North Korea and Russia are likely to discuss President Putin’s visit schedule to North Korea.
President Putin accepted Labor Party Secretary General Kim Jong-un’s invitation to visit North Korea at the North Korea-Russia summit held in Russia in September last year.
Previously, North Korea announced that President Putin accepted Secretary General Kim’s request to visit North Korea at the North Korea-Russia summit held in Vladivostok in April 2019, but the return visit did not take place.
But this time the atmosphere is quite different from 2019. If at the time it was a defensive summit aimed at securing ‘friendly forces’ in the process of North Korea’s denuclearization negotiations with the United States, discussions at this summit strengthened the unprecedented level of closeness between North Korea and Russia to establish a ‘new order of international relations’. It was assumed in the midst of this.
In particular, since last year, when North Korea lowered its COVID-19 barrier, the close relationship between North Korea and Russia has been rapidly strengthening, centering on military cooperation. For this reason, it is expected that there is a high possibility that President Putin’s ‘return visit to Pyongyang’ will actually take place this year.
After the North Korea-Russia summit in September last year, North Korea and Russia are known to have continued arms trade despite criticism from the West, including the United States. Recently, North Korea’s arms exports to Russia appear to have expanded from conventional artillery shells to ballistic missiles.
It seems that President Putin’s return visit may be discussed as a response to North Korea’s active support for Russia.
There are speculations that if President Putin’s visit to North Korea goes through, it will be after Russia’s presidential election in March. It is expected that he will launch a full-scale diplomatic war after making sure that he will be re-elected.
President Putin has never visited North Korea while in power. If the visit to North Korea takes place this year, the level of closeness between North Korea and Russia, which is deepening in response to Korea, the United States, and Japan, is expected to rise to a ‘new level.’
At the last year-end plenary meeting, Secretary General Kim also announced strengthening solidarity with ‘anti-American countries’ as an external strategy this year, and expressed his intention to actively utilize the new Cold War structure in Northeast Asia of Korea, the United States, and Japan versus North Korea, China, and Russia this year.
In addition, the two foreign ministers are expected to have extensive discussions on arms trade and economic cooperation through this meeting.
The scope of economic cooperation between North Korea and Russia is also expanding, with a group of Russian tourists planning to visit North Korea next month for the first time since COVID-19. Here, the issue of dispatching North Korean workers, which is a violation of sanctions against North Korea, can be discussed as one of North Korea’s means of earning foreign currency.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.