North Korea and Russia agreed to further boost their cooperation in various sectors, including the economy, science, and technology – a development that could create potential loopholes in the United Nations sanctions aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Officials of Pyongyang and Moscow signed a protocol that vows the expansion of the bilateral cooperation in North Korea’s capital Wednesday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
“The Protocol of the 10th Meeting of the Trade, Economic and Scientific Cooperation Commission between the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Government of the Russian Federation was signed,” KCNA said Thursday.
Since Tuesday, Russia has dispatched a delegation to Pyongyang, led by its natural resources minister Alexander Kozlov, to participate in the bilateral meeting.
“A number of issues were specifically discussed, including measures to revitalize and expand multifaceted bilateral exchanges and cooperation projects,” KCNA said, adding that the fields of discussion encompassed trade, economy, science, and technology without elaborating further.
But the state media explained the agreement was in accordance with the general consensus reached during the summit between the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in September.
Two months ago, the two leaders engaged in a mutual agreement to strengthen their bilateral relations in the Far East of Russia. Specifically, they consented to cooperate in multiple sectors, such as technology and the economy.
Central to this cooperation is the possibility of Russia providing rocket technology in exchange for ammunition supplies, which are essential for sustaining its aggression against Ukraine.
Indications of this cooperation are already evident. On Wednesday, KCNA reported the successful test of a new solid-fuel engine for an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).
The technical complexity involved in testing IRBM engines suggests that Russian technical support could have assisted North Korea in acquiring high-thrust solid-fuel engines developed for their new type of IRBM. North Korea’s IRBM has a range of some 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) , capable of striking U.S. territories in the West Pacific, including Guam.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service told its lawmakers in the National Assembly earlier this month that Russia has already acquired over 1 million artillery shells from North Korea since August.
The extent of the technology and ammunition exchange between North Korea and Russia remains unclear. However, the bilateral development, which involves enhanced cooperation from economy to military technology, may lead to ineffectiveness of the existing U.N. sanction regimes designed to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
In particular, Russia’s economic assistance to the Kim Jong Un regime may provide Pyongyang an alternative means and resilience to muddle-through the multilateral economic sanctions. Additionally, Moscow’s technology aid might help the North bypass international restrictions on curbing its missile technology progression.
To respond to these new geopolitical threats, the U.S. and its Asian allies, including South Korea and Japan, are likely to further tighten their security cooperation.
The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and his South Korean counterpart Park Jin, and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa met in San Francisco Tuesday, calling the military cooperation between Russia and North Korea a "serious threat to international peace and stability," according to a statement from South Korea's foreign ministry.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan