Sending Letters To Each Other, Vladimir Putin And Kim Jong-un Praise Russia-North Korea Cooperation

Vladimir Putin with Kim Jong-un. (Wikimedia Commons/The Presidential Press and Information Office/Kremlin.ru)

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin told North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the two countries would expand comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations, state media KCNA said Monday.

In his letter to Leader Kim on Korea Liberation Day, President Putin said closer ties would be in the interests of the two countries, helping to strengthen the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula, as well as the Northeast Asian region, KCNA reported.

Leader Kim on the other hand also sent a letter to President Putin, saying Russia-North Korea friendship had been forged in World War II with the victory over Japan, which previously occupied the Korean Peninsula.

"Strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity" between the two countries has reached a new level, is their joint effort to thwart threats and provocations from hostile military forces, Leader Kim said in the letter.

KCNA did not identify the adversary force in question, but usually uses the term to refer to the United States and its allies.

Leader Kim expects cooperation between Russia and North Korea to grow under the agreement signed in 2019, when the two leaders meet.

North Korea recognized two breakaway and Russian-backed "people's republics" in eastern Ukraine as independent states last July, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic, with officials raising the prospect of North Korean workers being sent to the area to assist in construction and construction. other workforce.

In response, Ukraine, which rejected the Russian invasion as a special military operation, immediately cut ties with Pyongyang over the move.