Russia and North Korea will expand bilateral relations: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the two countries will “expand the comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations with common efforts”, Pyongyang’s state media has reported.

In a letter to Kim for North Korea’s liberation day, Putin said closer ties would be in both countries’ interests and would help strengthen the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the Northeastern Asian region, the KCNA news agency said.

Kim also sent a letter to Putin saying Russian-North Korean friendship had been forged in World War II with victory over Japan, which had occupied the Korean peninsula.

The “strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity” between the two countries has since reached a new level in their common efforts to frustrate threats and provocations from “hostile forces”, Kim said in the letter. Pyongyang did not identify the hostile forces, but it has typically used that term to refer to the United States and its allies.

Agencies