South Korea’s Presidential Office remains tight-lipped about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea.
Putin officially visited North Korea on June 19. South Korea’s Presidential Office is keeping an eye on the situation without making any explicit statement.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and communicating as necessary with Russia,” South Korea’s Presidential Office official stated today. The office maintains its general stance of closely monitoring the situation concerning Putin’s visit to North Korea on June 18.
South Korea’s National Security Office is expected to analyze the contents of the North-Russia summit after an official announcement. According to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, North Korea’s General Secretary Kim Jong Un and Putin signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement. However, the specific details have not yet been disclosed.
South Korea’s Presidential Office’s silence may be due to the difficulty of hastily taking a stance when the exact results of the bilateral meeting have not been revealed.
South Korea’s Presidential Office plans to continue cooperating with the U.S. and Japan while analyzing the results. Therefore, it may take some time before an official statement is released. The presidential office is concerned with North Korea and the rapidly deteriorating South Korea-Russia relations following the Ukraine war. After Russia designated South Korea as an unfriendly country, Korean companies withdrew from the local market, stopping direct flights between the two countries.
Indifferent to international scrutiny, Russia might also increase its military cooperation with North Korea. Such concerns are raised because the potential for North Korean-Russian military collaboration to reach a level close to the automatic military intervention defined in the 1961 Sino-Soviet Alliance is high.
Head of the National Security Office Chang Ho Jin warned Russia not to cross a certain line during an appearance on South Korea’s media, Yonhap News TV, on June 16.
South Korea’s high-ranking presidential official previously stated, “We have to see what Russia and North Korea will disclose and how far they will go with the results this time. We have to see whether they will bury the discussed matters. We will continue to carefully examine measures to maintain peace in the region and ensure South Korea’s security is not compromised under any scenario.”
However, the likelihood of Russia increasing military cooperation with North Korea is not high. Putin praised South Korea for not directly supplying weapons to Ukraine during a press conference with foreign media on June 5, stating that he does not wish for further deterioration of relations.