Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arrived in North Korean with an official visit on July 19, and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un have signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. Its key point has been the clause on the two countries’ military cooperation.
"The Treaty on Comprehensive Partnership signed today contemplates, among other things, mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties thereto," the Russian leader told the press. In fact, Moscow and Pyongyang do not rule out joint action to repel aggression, which gives grounds for associations with the CSTO Collective Security Treaty. Cooperation parameters may be determined by separate agreements as Putin has invited the North Korean leader to Moscow.
There is another important thing as well. Amid the war in Ukraine fueled by NATO's aggressive Russia policy, and constant military pressure coming on the DPRK from the United States, Japan and South Korea, any restrictions on specific cooperation forms are simply delusive.
One of them is military and technical cooperation. "The Russian Federation does not rule out developing military and technical cooperation with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under the document signed today," Putin stressed. The Russian leader made it clear that a decision to that effect was prompted by statements voiced in the United States and other NATO countries on the supply of high-precision long-range weapons systems, F16 aircraft and other relevant arms and equipment to carry out strikes on Russian territories. "In fact, it was not just a statement. It is already happening. This is a grave violation of the restrictions to which the Western countries committed under various international obligations," Putin went on to say.
Just a reminder: the June 5 meeting with heads of international news agencies featured Putin warn that Russia might deploy its long-range weapons in various regions of the planet to use them for delivering sensitive blows against countries shoveling Ukraine with armaments. And here we are two weeks later, witnessing an obvious in-bound movement as regards the idea.
As for Moscow’s commitments under UN sanctions on military-technical and other cooperation with the DPRK, the days when Russia was paying regard to Western fears have long sunk into oblivion.
Now Moscow believes that the UN Security Council sanctions regime launched by the United States against the DPRK has to be lifted. "I would like to note that the unlimited restrictive regime of the UN Security Council inspired by the United States and its allies with respect to the DPRK should be revised," the Russian president said after his talks with Chairman of North Korea’s State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Un. In addition, Russia will "also keep opposing the very practice of cutthroat sanctions as a tool that the West got used to apply for preserving its hegemony in politics, the economy and many other areas," the Russian leader stressed.
Obviously, reviewing UNSC decisions is quite a task, but formats of military and technical cooperation do vary all over the place.
Meanwhile, the Russian leader is not saying all of this to scare his former "partners" somehow. We are talking about prospects for shaping a new regional security structure in the Far East, where interests of four nuclear powers — Russia, China, North Korea and the United States — collide with those of threshold states — Japan and South Korea — that are said to be a "screwdriver's turn" away from having a nuclear bomb.
The local hair-trigger situation suggests no peace on the Korean peninsula. The United States has been consistently escalating things around Taiwan. Japan has ramped up militarization processes. Military-political cooperation in the Washington-Seoul-Tokyo triangle has been strengthening. And all this amid revitalization of other NATO members in the region — Germany, Great Britain, Italy — as well as numerous statements by Western leaders about pushing the limits of NATO's responsibility zone beyond the Atlantic.
In this context, the Russian leader has drawn attention to the fact that "the propaganda cliches reproduced time after time by the Westerners are no longer able to disguise their aggressive geopolitical designs, including in Northeast Asia. Our opinions regarding the root causes of escalation of the military-political tension coincide. They include the US confrontational policy of expanding its military infrastructure in the sub-region, which is accompanied by a substantial increase in the scope and intensity of various military exercises involving the Republic of Korea and Japan, which have a hostile nature towards the DPRK." In turn, "Russia is ready to continue its political and diplomatic efforts to eliminate the threat of the recurrence of an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula and to build an architecture of long-term peace and stability there based on the principle of the indivisible security," the President emphasized.
One has to recall here that the PRC has its own Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the DPRK, including military aspects. Comprehensive strategic cooperation has been previously declared by Russian-Chinese intergovernmental documents, too. And Article 9 of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation (FCT) states that "when a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats." This is not about a military alliance, but an obvious indication of a feasible joint counteraction of military threats.
These documents alone have been creating sort of groundwork for building a collective security system in Northeast Asia, with its architecture either closed or open to other countries in the region.
This is seen as an important outcome of the Russian president's visit to the DPRK, marked by an asymmetric and capacious response to the West's repeated crossing of numerous "red lines", and demonstration of possibilities for an efficient counterplay on several geopolitical boards while promoting the image of a new world order.
This approach is about to go on. A strategic partnership agreement between Russia and Iran has reached its final preparations. And its content will apparently become no less resonant than agreements reached between Russia and North Korea.
