USA This Thursday he expressed his deep concern due to the threat of the Russian president Vladimir Putin to supply weapons to North Koreawarning that such a measure would “destabilize” the Korean peninsula.
Putin, during a visit to Pyongyang on Wednesday, signed a mutual defense pact with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who pledged his country’s “full support” for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In a speech delivered Thursday in Vietnam, Putin said Moscow would not rule out sending weapons to Pyongyang, which he described as a response to the aid that the West provides to Ukraine. “The Westerners provide weapons to Ukraine and from then on they say they no longer control anything, and it doesn’t matter how they are used,” he said. ”Well, we can also say that we have supplied something to someone and then we do not take responsibility for anything,” argued the Russian president.
The threat “is incredibly worrying”US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
“It would destabilize the Korean Peninsula, potentially, depending on the type of weapons, and could violate UN Security Council resolutions that Russia itself has supported.”Miller said.
Washington and its allies have previously accused North Korea of supplying Russia with missiles and artillery that it has used to attack Ukraine.
Putin also warned Seoul this Thursday not to supply weapons to Ukraineafter South Korea said it was reconsidering its current ban.
Seoul has long maintained a policy prohibiting it from selling weapons in active conflict zones, which it has stuck to despite calls from Washington and kyiv to reconsider its decision.
Miller said that “It is up to each country to decide whether to supply weapons to Ukraine”. And he added: “We welcome any support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.”
Regarding the agreement of mutual assistance in case of aggression signed on Wednesday with Pyongyang, Vladimir Putin downplayed it, arguing that “it is nothing new.”
“We have signed this agreement because the old one has ceased to exist. And in the previous agreement of 1961 it was all the same, there is nothing new,” he stated. Although he admitted that “In the current context this seems something extraordinary,” he added that “almost” nothing has been changed and that the situation in the world requires legally strengthening relations with Russia’s partners, especially in Asia.
South Korea “does not have to worry, since our military aid under the agreement we signed only arises if aggression is committed in relation to one of the signatories of the document,” said the Russian president. And he added: “As far as I know, the Republic of Korea is not planning aggression against North Korea.”.
Putin stressed that, in reality, the agreement he signed with Kim Jong-un It will be “a deterrent factor so that the (Korean) crisis” does not translate into an armed conflict. And, in response to a reporter’s question, ruled out the possible deployment of North Korean soldiers to the Ukrainian battlefield.
(With information from AFP and EFE)
