 |
|
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin give a toast during a summit banquet in Vladivostok on Apr. 25. (TASS/Yonhap News)
|
Russian president conveys desire for future development of bilateral economic cooperation
During his opening remarks before his first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Apr. 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to his visit to North Korea in 2000 and the friendship and cooperation treaty that the two countries signed, raising questions about why he would have made that reference. “I also remember visiting North Korea [in 2000],” Putin said in his opening remarks prior to his one-on-one meeting with Kim on Thursday. “Your father [Kim Jong-il] was one of the people who advocated concluding a friendship treaty between our two countries.” Most prominently, Putin’s visit to North Korea on July 19-20, 2000, is regarded as having initiated a thaw in the two countries’ relations, which had been chilly since the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with South Korea in September 1990 and subsequently collapsed. The very fact that Putin became the first Russian leader in history to visit Pyongyang was a gesture aimed at restoring friendly relations with the North. That February, shortly before Putin’s visit to the North, the two countries had concluded a friendship treaty. That replaced a previous treaty, dating back to 1961, which had mandated automatic military intervention in the event of a war, redefining their bilateral relationship as an economic cooperative partnership, rather than a political and military alliance. That served as the springboard for Putin’s visit to the North. Consequently, Putin’s remarks can be seen as emphasizing the fact that the person with whom he had signed the new friendship treaty was Kim Jong-un’s own father while also conveying his desire for the future development of their bilateral relations to remain focused on economic cooperation. During Putin’s previous visit to North Korea, he and Kim Jong-il adopted a joint declaration containing 13 points, including the promise to immediately contact each other in the event of an invasion or security threat and to not meddle in each other’s domestic affairs under the guise of humanitarian concerns. One interesting part of the declaration is a pledge “to sign various agreements in the area of the economy and proactively make plans for major cooperation in the metal, power, transportation, forestry, crude oil, and light industries” in order to forge bilateral connections in trade, the economy, and technology. By Yi Yong-in, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
