Russia's Putin in rare visit to North Korea

Last September, Kim toured the Vostochny Cosmodrome with Putin spaceport on a rare trip abroad

President Vladimir Putin thanked North Korea for its support for his invasion of Ukraine and said that the two countries would cooperate closely to overcome western sanctions ahead of his two-day visit to the country.

The comments were part of an op-ed piece printed in North Korean state media on Tuesday morning, soon before he was expected to arrive in Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"We highly appreciate that the DPRK [North Korea] is firmly supporting the special military operations of Russia being conducted in Ukraine," Putin wrote in the article carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He said that the two countries were "now actively developing the many-sided partnership," for example maintaining Moscow and North Korea's "common line and stand at the UN."

Putin wrote that the two countries would also seek deeper ties in tourism, culture and education.

First visit to North Korea since 2000

The Russian president's only previous visit to North Korea came shortly after he first assumed power, back in July 2000. At that point, Kim Jong Un's father Kim Jong Il was in charge and the country had barely emerged from years of serious famine in the 1990s.

But Kim Jong Un visited Russia last year in a fairly rare overseas trip, with him and Putin emphasizing the potential for collaboration in areas like space technology.

With Russia increasingly isolated by international sanctions, and this status the norm for North Korea for decades now, the two historical allies have had more incentive to cooperate in recent years.

South Korea, the US and Ukraine have all alleged that North Korea is shipping weapons to Russia, in violation of UN sanctions, in return for technical help with its nascent satellite program. Russia and North Korea have denied this, with Pyongyang calling the notion "absurd."

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller repeated the charge on Monday ahead of the trip, saying North Korea had provided "dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to Russia" for use in Ukraine.

Senior Russian delegation in toe

Accompanying Putin in the delegation are relatively new Defense Minister Andrei Beluosov, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as well as the head of the Russian space agency and railways and the ministersfor natural resources, health, transport, and Deputy Prime Minsiter Alexander Novak, Putin's point man for energy policy.

Commercial satellite imagery taken in the run-up to Putin's arrival showed potential indications of preparations for some kind of military parade in downtown Pyongyang.

msh/jsi (AFP, AP, Reuters)