US warns North Korea against arming Russia – DW – 09/06/2023

North Korea will “pay a price”  if it supplies Russia with weaponry for its war on Ukraine, the White House said.

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, told reporters that Pyongyang and Moscow were eyeing “leader-level discussions, perhaps even in person.”

The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be to discuss possible deals for weapons transfer.

Moscow could use additional supplies to “try to conquer territory that belongs to another sovereign nation.”

“This is not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community,” Sullivan added.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it was unable to confirm the reports of the potential meeting, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying: “We have nothing to say on this.”

A meeting with Putin would be Kim’s first summit with a foreign leader since North Korea closed its borders in January 2020.

They met for the first time in April 2019, two months after Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with former US President Donald Trump collapsed.

German lawmaker Falko Drossmann has told DW that he is concerned about reports of a meeting between the leaders of Russia and North Korea because it shows Moscow is “desperate” to acquire new weaponry.

“How desperate Vladimir Putin is, that the last state he can cooperate with…is North Korea,” said Drossman, who is from the center-left Social Democrats.

He also said it was clear sanctions were hurting Russia and the country now had a problem.

“They [Russia] don’t have new weapons. They don’t have modern technology. So they have to use very old-fashioned USSR weaponry, especially artillery, and that’s actually the ammunition North Korea can provide because they still use the same weaponry.”

On whether he was concerned about warming ties betwen the two countries, particularly given North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Drossmann said a bigger concern was “Russia starting a war in the center of Europe and killing thousands.”

rm/nm (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)