Weapons for food, tech swap in Kim-Putin talks
The US and South Korea hint that an arms deal between North Korea and Russia is inevitable
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The US and South Korea hint that an arms deal between North Korea and Russia is inevitable
The United States is claiming that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin are to hold face-to-face talks in Vladivostok for a deal to exchange weapons for food and technology.
White House's National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Monday they have information that Kim is taking the two countries' advancing arms talk to leader level.
Kim is likely to head by armored train later this month to Vladivostok, on Russia's Pacific coast not far from North Korea, to meet with Putin, according to The New York Times.
South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that both leaders would be on the campus of Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok to attend the Eastern Economic Forum, which is scheduled to run on 10 to 13 September.
The paper said Putin wanted artillery shells and antitank missiles from North Korea, while Kim is reportedly seeking advanced technology for satellites and nuclear-powered submarines as well as food aid for his impoverished nation.
Last week at the United Nations, the US, Britain, South Korea and Japan said that any deal to increase cooperation between Russia and North Korea would violate UN Security Council resolutions forbidding arms deals with Pyongyang — resolutions Moscow itself had endorsed.
Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said that sanctions will do little to stop Russia and North Korea from trading weapons.
"The war in Ukraine and the strategic competition between the United States and China have virtually neutralized the current UN Security Council system," Cho told Agence France-Presse.
WITH AFP
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