Russia Pushes Security Talks With North Korea, China
SEOUL—Russia said it supports holding regular security talks with North Korea and China to address the threat posed by the U.S. on the Korean Peninsula, as Moscow draws closer to its partners and attempts to counter Western isolation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov backed the idea during his two-day trip to North Korea that ended Thursday, according to Russian state media.
Lavrov said Moscow had been pursuing the trilateral dialogue, which would be frequent and unconditional, with both Beijing and Pyongyang, Russia state media reported. The trip came on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China, where he attended a summit celebrating Xi Jinping’s marquee foreign-policy project—the Belt and Road Initiative that Beijing has used to spread its influence abroad. The meeting between the two leaders at the event, with western representatives almost completely absent, highlighted the deep geopolitical divisions that have formed in recent years.
North Korea has yet to comment publicly on the potential for three-way talks with Russia and China. The Kim Jong Un regime recently provided Russia with 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions, the U.S. said last week.
Subsequent satellite-imagery analysis, conducted by a pair of think tanks, showed that Russia-flagged vessels had made several trips to North Korea in recent months. In a Thursday meeting, Lavrov and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said they would cooperate in what Russia’s foreign ministry described as an effort to ease regional tensions it blamed on the U.S. Lavrov also spoke for about an hour with Kim, North Korea’s 39-year-old leader, according to Russia’s foreign ministry, which didn’t provide further detail.
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