Expert Toloraya: The head of the DPRK Foreign Ministry in Moscow can agree on positions before the UN Security Council
One of the goals of the visit of North Korean Foreign Minister Choi Song Hui to Russia may be to coordinate the positions of Pyongyang and Moscow before the UN Security Council meeting in connection with accusations of sending military personnel to the Russian Federation, says Georgiy Toloraya, head of the Center for Russian Strategy in Asia at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
According to the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang, North Korean Foreign Minister Choi Song Hui headed the delegation to Moscow on an official visit.
“This is a continuation of the strategic dialogue. The situation, of course, now both on the Korean Peninsula and in Russian-Korean relations is developing very dynamically, so such periodic synchronization of watches and discussion of pressing problems is naturally important,” the expert said in a commentary to RIA Novosti.
In addition to the next aggravation on the Korean Peninsula, which will be the subject of discussion during the official visit of the head of the DPRK Foreign Ministry to the Russian capital, a separate topic of negotiations will be Russian-Korean bilateral relations, Toloraya believes. “Plus also interaction on the world stage. As you know, Ukraine proposed to convene meeting of the UN Security Council regarding accusations of sending North Korean troops (to Russia - ed.). Obviously, it is necessary to react to this situation somehow, to react jointly, since it concerns two countries, so the issue of coordinating positions in the face of hostile actions is also important" , - noted the orientalist. On Wednesday, at the request of Ukraine, the UN Security Council will hold a meeting in connection with statements about the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia, the Swiss mission chairing the Security Council in September reported.
Russia and the DPRK, during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang on June 18-19, concluded a new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement, which stipulates that if one of the parties is subjected to an armed attack by any state or several states and finds itself in a state of war, then the other side will immediately provide military and other assistance with all means at its disposal in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation and the DPRK. In addition, according to the eighth article, the parties create mechanisms for joint activities in order to strengthen defense capabilities in the interests of preventing war and ensuring regional and international peace and security.
Earlier in October, Putin, in an interview with Olga Skabeeva for the “60 Minutes” program on the Rossiya 1 TV channel, said that the issue of providing mutual military assistance is a sovereign matter for the Russian Federation and the DPRK, and only they can decide whether to limit themselves to exercises and exchange of experience within the framework of the article, provided for by the concluded contract, or "to apply something." The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, previously emphasized that the interaction between the Russian Federation and the DPRK in the military sphere does not violate international law.