Moscow says Russia will deepen relations with North Korea

Russia says it will further deepen its bilateral relations with North Korea as the United States expresses concerns about advancing alleged arms negotiations between Moscow and Pyongyang.  

At a press conference on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that Moscow and Pyongyang currently maintained good ties and that the Russian side wanted to develop them more.

“Moscow and Pyongyang maintain good, mutually respectful relations. We intend to develop them further,” he stressed, calling North Korea "a very important neighbor.”

His comments came a day after Washington expressed concerns that alleged arms negotiations between Moscow and Pyongyang were advancing actively, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had written to each other pledging to boost their cooperation.

The White House on Wednesday claimed that it had new intelligence that purportedly shows the two leaders have exchanged letters, accusing Russia of looking to North Korea for munitions for the war in Ukraine.

Peskov did not confirm the alleged swapping letters when asked by reporters if the exchange had taken place, but stressed that “contacts are being made at various levels.”

North Korea has backed Russia over the war in Ukraine, insisting that the “hegemonic policy” of the US-led NATO military alliance of Western governments forced Moscow to take military action to protect its national security interests.

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The United States, in turn, has accused Pyongyang of providing arms to Russia to help combat the West-supplied Ukrainian forces. North Korea and Russia have, however, dismissed US claims as part of its usual publicity campaign against unfriendly countries.

Russia and China, meanwhile, have stood firm against US-led efforts at the United Nations Security Council to impose more sanctions against North Korea over its growing missile tests in response to increasing US military presence and war games in the Korean Peninsula.

Last month, North Korea officially recognized Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republics (LPR), Ukraine’s two eastern breakaway regions, which joined the Russian Federation following local referendums. Ukraine retaliated by severing its relations with the North.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Peskov strongly rejected claims by the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, that Russia allegedly provokes hunger in the world by blocking Ukraine’s grain export, calling the accusation “unfounded and erroneous.”

“Russia takes a very responsible stance in this area. Russia, as you know, despite the failure to fulfill the relevant obligations in relation to it (referring to obligations within the grain deal), has repeatedly extended the so-called grain deal,” Peskov added.

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The deal is officially known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative. It was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations on July 22, 2022, and has since, according to the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, allowed three Ukrainian ports to export some 32.9 million metric tons of grain and other food to the world, over half of that to developing countries.

The agreement last came up for extension on May 18 and Russia agreed at that point to extend it for 60 more days. On July 17, Moscow said that it would not extend the deal anymore unless Russia's demands were met.

The deal came with a separate agreement to facilitate shipments of Russian food and fertilizer. Moscow says no facilitation under that agreement has yet taken place. The Kremlin had initially threatened to abandon the deal if its concerns were not addressed. 

Commenting on prospects for the resumption of the grain deal, in particular, with the participation of Qatar, Peskov stressed that “there are no concrete results of these talks yet.”

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