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full screen Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, at the signing of a comprehensive agreement on Wednesday. Photo: Kristina Kormilitsyna/Sputnik/Kremlin Via AP/TT
The security pact between Russia and North Korea means that the countries must immediately – and by all means – help each other in the event of war.
The “unbeatable alliance” guarantees a new world order, say North Korean announcements filled with superlatives.
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un signed the “strategic partnership agreement” in Pyongyang on Wednesday.
Kim called it an alliance. Vladimir Putin did not use that word.
If either country is under “direct threat of an armed invasion,” they must immediately coordinate to eliminate the threat, the agreement says, as presented by North Korea’s propagandist KCNA news agency.
And if one of the countries is invaded and ends up at war, the other must “provide military and other assistance with all available means, without delay”, in accordance with the UN Charter’s wording on the right to self-defense and the laws of both countries.
Want to divide the world
According to KCNA, dictator Kim Jong-Un stated that his “heart overflowed with deep emotions as he stood with the comrades from Russia, the most intimate and closest of brothers in arms.”
Kim describes the agreement as the “strongest” that the countries have entered into and as a “historic watershed”. He also describes it as a “peace-loving and defense-oriented” initiative to accelerate development towards a “multipolar new world”.
Article six of the agreement also states that the two countries must work for a “multipolar world order”.
Vladimir Putin has for a long time advocated such a world order. It is put in relation to an alleged American or Western hegemony, which would then have to be replaced by a new order in which a certain group of great powers gets exclusive spheres of interest in the world. He has been supported in this by, among others, China.
Among other things, it has been highlighted as a fund for the war of invasion of Ukraine, which would then be incorporated into a Russian sphere.
“Like the Cold War”
North Korea and Russia also commit not to enter into agreements with other countries that conflict with the other country’s “core interests”.
Vladimir Putin added at his appearance in Pyongyang that he does not rule out greater military-technical cooperation with North Korea, which reportedly concerns weapons and materiel. North Korea has apparently already supplied Russia with a lot of weapons for the war in Ukraine.
Experts liken the agreement to a pact North Korea made with the Soviet Union in 1961.
– North Korea and Russia have completely restored their military alliance from the Cold War era, Cheong Seong Chang of the Sejong Institute in South Korea told AP.