North Korea’s Kim voices ‘full support’ for Russia in phone talks with Putin ahead of Alaska summit
Seoul: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has expressed his “full support” for Russia during his phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pyongyang’s state media reported Wednesday, ahead of an upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and Putin in Alaska.
Kim and Putin held phone talks the previous day, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, marking the first time that the North has reported on its leader’s phone conversation with a foreign leader.
The phone talks came as Putin and Trump are set to hold a summit in Alaska on Friday to discuss efforts to halt Moscow’s war with Ukraine.
Kim “expressed firm conviction that the DPRK would always remain faithful to the spirit of the DPRK-Russia treaty and fully support all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future,” the KCNA said, referring to a mutual defence treaty signed between the two nations in June last year.
DPRK is the acronym of North Korea’s full name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
On North Korea’s troop deployment for Russia’s war with Ukraine, Putin highly appreciated the “bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People’s Army in liberating Kursk, a part of Russian territory,” according to the KCNA.
Russia’s TASS news agency earlier reported that Putin briefed Kim on his upcoming meeting with Trump during their phone talks. But the KCNA did not report on such details.
The KCNA said Putin congratulated North Korea on its upcoming 80th anniversary of liberation on August 15, which marks Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.
It added that Kim and Putin reaffirmed their will to strengthen cooperation and agreed to “make closer contact in the future.”
The leaders of the North and Russia signed a mutual defense treaty in June last year in Pyongyang, which calls for providing military assistance “without delay” if either side comes under attack, Yonhap news agency reported.
North Korea has sent troops and weapons to Russia to support Moscow’s war efforts. Russia’s media reported the North will send 5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers to Kursk to support reconstruction efforts.