Russian President, Vladimir Putin will be making a stopover to North Korea for a two-day visit on Tuesday, June 19, according to an announcement by both countries announced. This is coming amid the growing international concerns about their military cooperation.
This will be Putin’s first trip to North Korea in 24 years and he is expected to meet with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, for discussions, as they look to forge deeper alliances in the midst of separate intensifying confrontations with Washington.
The official North Korean Central News Agency had said Putin’s stopover was at Kim’s invitation.
The international concerns about the visit are over a possible arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions to fuel Putin’s war in Ukraine. In return, the Russian government provides economic assistance and technology transfers that would boost the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program.
Military, economic and basically every favourable cooperation conceivable between North Korea and Russia have considerably increased since Kim visited the Russian Far East in September, to meet with Putin, their first since 2019.
Remarkably, a weapons trade with North Korea would violate multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions that Russia, a permanent U.N. Security Council member had previously approved.
Putin first visit to Pyongyang had been in July 2000, months after his first election when he met with Kim Jong Il, Kim’s father, who ruled the country then.
After North Korea, Putin will visit Vietnam on Wednesday and Thursday to meet in Hanoi with General Nguyen Phu Trong, the secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party, President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man.
The United States has meanwhile, criticized Putin’s planned visit.
