Kim Jong-un meets with Russian protection minister on navy cooperation

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean chief Kim Jong-un met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to debate navy points and the regional safety surroundings, state media stated Thursday because the nation celebrated the seventieth anniversary of an armistice that halted preventing within the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency stated Kim and Shoigu talked Wednesday within the capital, Pyongyang, and reached a consensus on unspecified “matters of mutual concern in the field of national defense and security and on the regional and international security environment.”

The report didn’t specify what was mentioned.

KCNA additionally stated Kim took Shoigu to an arms exhibition that showcased a few of North Korea’s latest weapons and briefed him on nationwide plans to increase the nation’s navy capabilities. Photos from the exhibition confirmed Kim gesturing whereas speaking to Shoigu as they walked close to a row of enormous missiles mounted on launcher vans.

In a uncommon case of diplomatic opening for the reason that begin of the pandemic, North Korea invited delegations from Russia and China to attend the occasions marking the armistice of July 27, 1953. While the truce left the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of struggle, the North nonetheless sees it as a victory within the “Grand Fatherland Liberation War.”

The North Korean festivities had been broadly anticipated to be capped by a large navy parade in Pyongyang, the place Kim may showcase his strongest, nuclear-capable missiles designed to focus on neighboring rivals and the U.S. mainland. State media, nonetheless, had not confirmed plans for a navy parade.

Some specialists say North Korea sees U.S. confrontations with China and Russia over regional affect and the aggression in Ukraine as a possibility to interrupt out of diplomatic isolation and insert itself right into a united entrance towards Washington.

On Wednesday, Shoigu additionally held talks with North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam that had been aimed toward “strengthening cooperation between our defense departments,” Russia’s Defense Ministry stated in a press release.

North Korea has been aligning with Russia over the struggle in Ukraine, insisting that the “hegemonic policy” of the U.S.-led West pressured Moscow to take navy motion to guard its safety pursuits. The Biden administration has accused North Korea of offering arms to Russia to assist its preventing in Ukraine, though the North has denied the declare.