Russia Prez Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un revived a Cold War-era mutual defence pledge between their nations on Wednesday, signing a new agreement that calls for them to assist each other in the event of “aggression” against either country. The Russian prez, in a briefing after the two leaders signed the document, did not clarify whether such assistance would require immediate and full-fledged military intervention in the event of an attack, as the now-defunct 1961 treaty specified.But he said that Russia “does not exclude the development of military-technical cooperation” with North Korea in accordance with the new agreement.
The pact was one of the most visible rewards Kim has extracted from Moscow in return for the dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 shipping containers of munitions that Washington has said North Korea has provided in recent months to help support Putin’s war in Ukraine. It also represented the farthest the Kremlin has gone in throwing its weight behind North Korea, after years of cooperating with the US at the United Nations in curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programme – a change that accelerated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Neither North Korea nor Russia released the text of the new agreement. Kim called the pact a “most powerful agreement” and praised the “outstanding foresight” of Putin, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti said. The pledge of mutual assistance is likely to alarm Washington and its allies, particularly South Korea, because it could not only provide further support for Russia’s war in Ukraine but also undermines efforts to curb North Korea’s N-missile programmes.
