Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) welcomes North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (L) ahead of a meeting in Moscow on Monday. The two sides blamed the United States and its allies for tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said. Photo courtesy of Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service/EPA
SEOUL, July 21 (UPI) — The top diplomats of Russia and North Korea blamed the United States and its allies for raising tensions around the Korean Peninsula, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui made the remarks during a meeting in Moscow as part of the third round of the Russia-North Korea strategic dialogue, according to a readout by the ministry.
The two “agreed that the irresponsible conduct of the United States and its allies, including the expansion of provocative military activities around the Korean Peninsula, has been the primary cause of the deteriorating security situation in Northeast Asia and beyond,” the ministry said.
The language echoes Pyongyang’s frequent condemnations of joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, which it claims are rehearsals for an invasion. The North has also recently criticized Japan’s military buildup and its expanding security ties with Washington and Seoul, accusing the three countries of using their growing defense cooperation to contain North Korea and neighboring countries.
The meeting came during Choe’s visit to Russia, where she met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday. Pyongyang and Moscow have grown closer since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the two sides signing a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty in June 2024 that includes a mutual defense clause.
North Korea has sent munitions and roughly 15,000 troops to support Russian forces in the Kursk region, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, which estimates that about 2,000 of the deployed troops have been killed.
The partnership “contributes to regional and international security and to the emergence of a new, more equitable multipolar world order,” the ministry said.
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency carried a press statement on the meeting Tuesday, saying it focused on “the implementation of the treaty on comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, high-level visits, the plan for multi-faceted cooperation between the two countries and diplomatic coordination on major international issues of mutual concern.”
Choe also “expressed invariable support for all the internal and external policies of the Russian Federation to eliminate the root cause of the Ukrainian dispute and defend its national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international justice,” the statement said.
She laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin, KCNA reported.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last traveled to Russia in September 2023, when he met Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the country’s Far East and toured military and industrial facilities. Putin visited Pyongyang in June 2024.
