Russian foreign minister meets North Korean leader

SEOUL: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the two countries forge closer ties in the face of what they see as a hostile and aggressive US-led Western camp.

Russia’s state-run news agency reported that Lavrov’s meeting with Kim had lasted over an hour but the ministry did not provide further details.

Lavrov, who arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday, earlier thanked  North Korea for backing Russia’s military actions in Ukraine and pledged Moscow’s “complete support and solidarity” for Kim, Russia’s foreign ministry said.

Lavrov’s visit is seen as setting the stage for a visit by President Vladimir Putin, who has stepped up cooperation with politically isolated North Korea.

Speaking at a reception hosted on Wednesday, Lavrov said Moscow strongly valued Pyongyang’s “unwavering and principled support” for Russia in the Ukraine war, which it calls a “special military operation”.

“Likewise the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK,” Lavrov said, according to the transcript of the speech released on his ministry’s website.

After talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, Lavrov later told reporters that increased military activities by the United States and its allies Japan and South Korea were a cause for concern.

The US and South Korean navies on Thursday joined those of four other countries – Canada, Belgium, New Zealand and the Philippines – for an anti-naval mine exercise off South Korea’s south coast, the South Korean defence ministry said.

A US B-52 bomber made a rare landing in South Korea to underline the two countries’ alliance against North Korea’s rising nuclear threats, South Korea’s military said.

In his comments, Lavrov said North Korea, China and Russia were pursuing a policy of seeking to ease regional tensions. North Korean state media said Lavrov’s visit would mark a “significant occasion” in further consolidating relations between Pyongyang and Moscow.

Lavrov’s two-day visit comes a month after North Korean leader Kim made a rare trip to Russia, during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation.

A US think-tank said on Tuesday that satellite images showed continued activity around a North Korean port near Russia, indicating at least six trips by sea between the two countries since late August.

The shipments between the port of Rajin and Russia’s Dunai are possibly related to the transfer of North Korean munitions to Russia, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.

The White House said last week that North Korea had recently provided Russia with a shipment of weapons in what it called a troubling development. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Western allegations were not based on evidence.

South Korea and the United States have expressed concern about increased exchanges between Russia and the North, and the allies have stepped up military drills together with Japan in response to the threat from North Korea.