Russian President Vladimir Putin did not rule out supplying weapons to North Korea on Thursday in response to the delivery of modern weapons to Ukraine by NATO countries.
“We reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions of the world. And I do not rule this out either in view of our agreement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Putin said during a press conference at the end of his visit to Vietnam, broadcast on Russian public television.
Putin assured that “the Westerners provide weapons to Ukraine and from then on they say that they no longer control anything, and it does not matter how they are used.”
“Well, we can also say that we have supplied something to someone and then we are not responsible for anything,” he said.
Regarding the mutual assistance agreement in case of aggression signed this Wednesday with Pyongyang, Putin downplayed the drama, 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.
Despite this, he admitted that “in the current context this seems something extraordinary” and added that “we have hardly changed anything” 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. As far as I know, the Republic of Korea is not planning aggression against North Korea,” he noted.
Putin stressed that, in reality, the agreement he signed with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, 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, he ruled out the possible deployment of North Korean soldiers to the Ukrainian battlefield. The signing of the mutual assistance agreement between Russia and North Korea has caused great unrest in Seoul, but also in the United States and Japan.
Putin today also called some of the sanctions adopted against the North Korean communist regime “inhumane” and called for their lifting. EFE
