Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday did not rule out supplying North Korea with weapons in response to NATO countries delivering modern weapons to Ukraine.
“We reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions of the world. And I do not rule this out either in view of our agreement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Putin said during a press conference at the end of his visit to Vietnam.
Putin said that “the West supplies weapons to Ukraine and then says that it no longer controls anything, and it does not matter how they are used.”
“We can also say that we have supplied something to someone and then we are not responsible for anything,” he said.
Putin played down the agreement on mutual assistance in the event of aggression signed with Pyongyang on Wednesday, saying that “it is nothing new.”
“We have signed this agreement because the old one has ceased to exist. And in the previous agreement from 1961 everything was the same, there is nothing new,” he said.
Although he admitted that “in the current context this seems extraordinary,” he added that “we have hardly changed anything” and that the situation in the world requires legally strengthening relations with Russia’s partners, especially in Asia.
South Korea “has no reason to worry, as our military assistance under the agreement we signed is only available if aggression is committed against one of the signatories of the document. As far as I know, the Republic of Korea is not planning any aggression against North Korea,” he said.
Putin stressed that the agreement he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would actually be a “deterrent to prevent the (Korean) crisis” from escalating into an armed conflict.
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2024-09-21 13:03:42
