SEOUL, South Korea (AP) \u2014 North Korea said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his willingness to visit the North at an unspecified \u201cearly date\u201d as the countries continue to align in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The North Korean Foreign Ministry highlighted Putin\u2019s intent for a visit following\u00a0North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui\u2019s meetings with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov\u00a0in Moscow last week. The ministry said in a statement published by state media that the two countries agreed to further strategic and tactical cooperation with Russia to establish a \u201cnew multi-polarized international order,\u201d a reference to their efforts to build a united front against Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putin had already confirmed his willingness to visit the capital, Pyongyang, at a convenient time during his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Russia\u2019s Far East in September. One of the few world leaders openly supporting Putin\u2019s war on Ukraine, Kim has been actively boosting the visibility of his ties with Russia in an attempt to break out of diplomatic isolation and strengthen his footing, as he navigates a deepening nuclear standoff with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a separate statement on Sunday, the North\u2019s Foreign Ministry condemned the U.N. Security Council for calling an emergency\u00a0meeting over the country\u2019s latest ballistic test, which state media described as a new intermediate-range solid-fuel missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead. The ministry said the test-firing on Jan. 14 was among the country\u2019s regular activities to improve its defense capabilities and that it didn\u2019t pose a threat to its neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Korea on Thursday urged the Security Council\u00a0\u201cto break the silence\u201d over North Korea\u2019s escalating missile tests and threats. Russia and China, both permanent members of the council, have blocked U.S.-led efforts to increase sanctions on North Korea over its recent weapons tests, underscoring a divide deepened over\u00a0Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alignment between Pyongyang and Moscow has raised international concerns about alleged arms cooperation, in which the North provides Russia with munitions to help prolong its fighting in Ukraine, possibly in exchange for badly needed economic aid and military assistance to help upgrade Kim\u2019s forces. Both Pyongyang and Russia have\u00a0denied accusations\u00a0by Washington and Seoul about North Korean arms transfers to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
North Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry, in comments published by state media, said Choe and the Russian officials in their meetings expressed a \u201cstrong will to further strengthen strategic and tactical cooperation in defending the core interests of the two countries and establishing a new multi-polarized international order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia expressed \u201cdeep thanks\u201d to North Korea for its \u201cfull support\u201d over its war on Ukraine, the North Korean ministry said. It said Choe and the Russian officials expressed \u201cserious concern\u201d over the United States\u2019 expanding military cooperation with its Asian allies that they blamed for worsening tensions in the region and threatening North Korea\u2019s sovereignty and security interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years, after Kim in recent months used Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine as a distraction to ramp up his weapons tests and military demonstrations. The United States, South Korea and Japan have responded by strengthening their combined military exercises, which Kim portrays as invasion rehearsals, and sharpening their deterrence plans built around nuclear-capable U.S. assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the latest tit-for-tat, North Korea on Friday said it conducted\u00a0a test of a purported nuclear-capable underwater attack drone\u00a0in response to a combined naval exercise by the\u00a0United States, South Korea and Japan\u00a0last week, as it continued to blame its rivals for tensions in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Choe\u2019s visit to Moscow came as Kim continues to use domestic political events to issue provocative threats of nuclear conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Pyongyang\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament last week,\u00a0Kim declared that North Korea is abandoning its long-standing goal of a peaceful unification\u00a0with war-divided rival South Korea and ordered the rewriting of the North\u2019s constitution to cement the South as its most hostile foreign adversary. He accused South Korea of acting as \u201ctop-class stooges\u201d of the Americans and repeated a threat that he would use his nukes to annihilate the South if provoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analysts say North Korea could be aiming to diminish South Korea\u2019s voice in the regional nuclear standoff and\u00a0eventually force direct dealings with Washington\u00a0as it looks to cement its status as a nuclear weapons state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) \u2014 North Korea said Sunday that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions\/3084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}