A senior North Korean diplomat reaffirmed strengthening ties with Russia on Saturday to mark the seventh anniversary of the 2019 summit between leader Kim Jong-un and President Vladimir Putin. Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jong-gyu hailed the Vladivostok meeting as a "new turning point" in bilateral relations. He cited the June 2024 Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed in Pyongyang as elevating ties to a "high level of alliance."
North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jong-gyu issued a statement on the ministry's website on April 25, marking the seventh anniversary of the first summit between leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, Russia's Far East, in 2019.
He described the Vladivostok summit as a "new turning point" in the development of bilateral relations. "Since the DPRK-Russia summit meeting in Vladivostok, the two peoples have developed the friendly and cooperative relations in a multifaceted way," he wrote.
Kim cited the signing of the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during another summit in Pyongyang in June 2024, which he said elevated relations to a "high level of alliance." He pointed to North Korea's deployment of troops to support Russia's war against Ukraine as an example of the "enduring nature of the firm alliance and militant friendship" between the two countries.
"It is our invariable stand and will to elevate and develop the traditional relations of friendship and cooperation between the two countries onto a new higher level," he added. Following the 2019 summit, Kim visited Russia in 2023 for talks with Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome before their 2024 meeting in Pyongyang.
