North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (R) is traveling to Russia this week to attend a pair of forums, state-run media reported Tuesday, as military ties continue to grow between the isolated regimes. Choe met with Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) in Moscow in January. File Kremlin Pool Photo by Artem Geodakyan/Sputnik/EPA-EFE
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (UPI) — North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui departed for a trip to Russia, state media reported Tuesday, as the two regimes continue to strengthen ties amid growing international concern about their military cooperation.
Choe left for Russia on Monday to attend the Eurasian Women’s Forum and the BRICS Women’s Forum, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported in a brief dispatch.
The Russian Embassy in Pyongyang also announced the trip on its Telegram channel, saying the minister traveled on a commercial North Korean Air Koryo flight and would participate in the forums in St. Petersburg Wednesday through Friday.
Choe will also take part in an “extensive cultural program,” the embassy said.
The trip is the second to Russia this year by the North Korean envoy, who rarely travels abroad. She visited in January and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a series of high-level exchanges between the two increasingly isolated regimes.
Pyongyang and Moscow have strengthened their relationship in the wake of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Putin signing a mutual defense treaty in June.
Washington and its allies accuse North Korea of supplying munitions to Russia, which Pyongyang has denied. A recent South Korean intelligence report said the North has sent 13,000 shipping containers suspected of carrying arms to Russia since mid-2022.
North Korea, meanwhile, is believed to be receiving advanced technology for its space and missile programs along with a much-needed boost for its ailing economy.
Ukraine’s spy chief said on Saturday that North Korea’s supply of military aid to Russia far outstrips that of any other allies and is among the largest challenges that Ukrainian forces are facing on the battlefield.
“Seven to ten days after delivery, hostilities intensify, and there is nothing we can currently do to stop it,” Kyrylo Budanov, head of military intelligence agency GUR, said at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv. “The volumes from North Korea are not comparable with anything else. There is a big gap between that and what is provided by other allies.”
At a press briefing Monday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington continues to be “incredibly concerned by the expanding security relationship between North Korea and Russia.”
Miller expressed concern “both for the support that North Korea continues to provide to Russia to prosecute its illegal war against Ukraine, and for the prospect of Russia assisting North Korea in ways that ultimately will be destabilizing to the Korean Peninsula.”
Foreign Minister Choe’s trip comes on the heels of a visit to Pyongyang by Sergei Shoigu, head of Russia’s Security Council, last week.
According to KCNA, Shoigu met with Kim Jong Un Friday and the two discussed “steadily deepening the strategic dialogue between the two countries and strengthening cooperation to defend the mutual security interests and on the regional and international situations.”