Russian President Vladimir Putin met North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at the Kremlin on Monday for talks.
“Today is a national holiday for us, and meeting good friends on holidays is a good tradition,” Putin said in greeting. The Kremlin has not released any details about their conversation.
North Korea supports Moscow in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which started in 2022. Choe was last a guest at the Kremlin in January.
It was recently announced that thousands of North Korean soldiers are now in Russia in the border area with Ukraine. On Friday, Choe told her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that North Korea would help Russia in the war until victory.
On Monday, she conveyed greetings from ruler Kim Jong Un to Putin. North Korea is internationally isolated because of its nuclear weapons tests. North Korea has also been widely criticized for supplying weapons to Russia. Russia, in turn, is subject to sanctions over its war against Ukraine.
Putin and Kim signed a treaty on a strategic partnership between the two countries during a visit to North Korea this summer, which also provides for mutual military assistance. The Russian president recently said the details of the deal still need to be clarified.
Western countries have described the deployment of North Korean soldiers in Russia as a massive escalation of the conflict. The troops are said to be in the western Russian region of Kursk. Kiev fears they will soon be deployed in Ukraine.
