North says Putin willing to visit Pyongyang 'at early date'

North Korea said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his willingness to visit Pyongyang at an early date following Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui's visit to Moscow last week.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, and Russiam President Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral summit at the Vostochny Сosmodrome in Russia’s far eastern Amur region on Sept. 13, 2023. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

North Korea said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his willingness to visit Pyongyang at an early date following Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui's visit to Moscow last week.

Putin "expressed deep thanks once again" for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's invitation for him to visit Pyongyang at a convenient time and expressed his willingness to visit the country "at an early date," reported the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in an English-language report.

Choe led a North Korean delegation on a three-day visit to Moscow since last Monday, where she held a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and paid a courtesy call to Putin on Tuesday. She returned to Pyongyang on Friday.

According to the statement released by the North Korean foreign minister's assistant office, reported by the KNCA, the two sides had "deep strategic communication on various regional and international issues," including the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.

They "expressed their strong will to further strengthen strategic and tactical cooperation in defending the core interests of the two countries and establishing a new multi-polarized international order based on independence and justice."

The two sides also discussed "taking practical action measures for comprehensively and thoroughly implementing the agreements reached at the historic DPRK-Russia summit held in September 2023," it further reported, referring to the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The Kremlin also said Friday that it is coordinating the date of Putin's visit to North Korea, returning Kim's trip to Russia, through diplomatic channels.

Putin last visited North Korea in July 2000, during the regime of late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, father of Kim Jong-un.

Kim and Putin held a rare summit at Russia's leading spaceport, Vostochny Cosmodrome, in September last year, seen as an opportunity to strengthen military cooperation between the two countries. This marked Kim's first overseas trip since he visited Russia in April 2019. During this visit, Kim extended an invitation for Putin to visit Pyongyang, while the Russian leader pledged to help develop North Korea's satellite program.

The summit came as Russia needed North Korea's ammunition to replenish its depleted supply in its war on Ukraine, while Pyongyang needed Russian technologies related to nuclear-powered submarines, missiles and satellites.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greets North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow last Tuesday. [AFP/YONHAP]

The KNCA reported Sunday that Russia "expressed deep thanks to the DPRK for extending full support and solidarity to the stand of the Russian government and people on the special military operation in Ukraine."

The foreign minister's office further said the two sides "expressed serious concern over the negative influence of the U.S. and its allied forces' irresponsible and unjust provocative acts," which it said seriously threatens the security environment of the Korean Peninsula and the sovereign rights and security interests of North Korea.

The closer ties between North Korea and Russia are indicative of the widening geopolitical schism in the region, with Pyongyang appearing especially wary of Seoul's growing security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo over the past year.

On Friday, North Korea said it had conducted an "important" test of a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone in response to the latest joint maritime exercise involving South Korea, the United States and Japan.

South Korea, Japan and the United States held a trilateral naval drill from Monday to Wednesday last week in waters off the coast of Jeju Island, involving the American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

The exercise came after North Korea's launch of a solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) carrying a hypersonic warhead into the East Sea earlier this month.

In a statement carried by the KNCA on Friday, the North Korean Defense Ministry "strongly denounced" the trilateral drill and claimed it had tested an underwater nuclear weapon system, "Haeil-5-23," under development in the East Sea.

The underwater attack drone was previously tested in March 2023.

Seoul's presidential office said in a statement Sunday that the North's claims of testing an underwater nuclear weapons system could be "exaggerated," downplaying the possibility that it was nuclear-powered.

The United States on Friday said the "burgeoning relationship between the two countries is certainly worrisome," referring to strengthened North Korea and Russia ties, "for the people of Ukraine and our interests there as well."

John Kirby, the White House National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said in a press briefing that he couldn't "verify" the claims made by the North of its underwater nuclear weapons system test.

But he added, "There's little doubt that they continue to pursue advanced military capabilities to threaten their neighbors and to threaten the region."

Pointing to the strengthened intelligence-sharing capabilities between Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington following the Camp David summit of August 2023 meant to get "better information about what Kim Jong-un is up to," he said, "We haven't taken our eye off this one bit."

Kirby said North Korea's bellicose rhetoric, including threats of nuclear attacks, should be taken "seriously" but added that Kim should "focus more on feeding his people than on buying and purchasing advanced military capabilities."

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]