At the end of a high-profile summit in Russia’s Far East President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gifted each other guns.
President Putin gave Kim a Russian-produced rifle “of the highest quality,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. In return, Putin received a North Korean rifle.
He also gave Kim a glove from a space suit, while Putin “gratefully” accepted an invitation to visit North Korea.
While meeting with Putin, Kim Jong Un described DPRK-Russia relations as “strategically important.” Furthermore, Kim pledged his support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which Kim described in a way that has been variously rendered as a “just” or “sacred” fight in English translations of his remarks.
Meanwhile, Putin said Kim’s visit to Russia, which began on Tuesday, would last a few more days.
Western critics have argued that Russia Courting North Korea Shows Contempt for International Law.
The first signal is the summit’s evident focus on the military. There has been a great deal of media speculation about a possible arms deal between the DPRK and Russia.
The makeup of the North Korean delegation, where Kim was flanked by high-ranking officials from the military and arms industries, indicates that such a deal, a clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2270, most certainly occurred.
However, the details of any such agreement won’t be definitively known for some time.
The same resolution that acts as a comprehensive arms embargo against the DPRK also prohibits other countries from cooperating with Pyongyang in the aerospace field.
Yet Russia hopes to cooperate with North Korea nonetheless. In Putin’s own words, that’s why they met at the Vostochny Cosmodrome.
North Korea has repeatedly failed to launch a spy satellite into space, and so could benefit from Russia’s technical know-how in this field.
Of course, any advancement in North Korea’s technical capabilities in that regard would pose an increased threat to Japan, South Korea and the United States, countries that recently held a trilateral summit criticized by Moscow for elevating tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.
