Ukraine<\/a>, insisting that the \u201chegemonic policy\u201d of the U.S.-led West forced Moscow to take military action to protect its security interests. The Biden administration has accused North Korea of providing arms to Russia to aid its fighting in Ukraine, although the North has denied the claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen asked about the possibility that Shoigu\u2019s visit was to discuss importing weapons from North Korea, John Kirby, the White House\u2019s National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, didn\u2019t answer directly but said it was clear Putin is reaching out to other countries for support in fighting his war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMr. Putin knows he\u2019s having his own defense procurement problems, his own inventory problems, that his military remains on the back foot, and he\u2019s trying to shore that up,\u201c Kirby said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The North Korean festivities were widely expected to be capped later Thursday by a giant military parade in Pyongyang, where Kim could showcase his most powerful, nuclear-capable missiles. State media, however, had not confirmed plans for a military parade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some experts say North Korea sees U.S. confrontations with China and Russia over regional influence and the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to break out of diplomatic isolation and insert itself into a united front against Washington. Both Moscow and Beijing have been derailing U.S. efforts to strengthen U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea over its flurry of missile tests since 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last time North Korea invited foreign government delegates for a military parade was in February 2018, when it held a low-key event that excluded Kim\u2019s ICBMs. North Korea at the time was initiating diplomacy with Seoul and Washington as Kim attempted to leverage his nukes for badly needed economic benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those efforts led to a summit between Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump that June, but the diplomacy collapsed after their second meeting in February 2019, when the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of their nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim has since ramped up the development of the nuclear arms that he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival while berating \u201cgangster-like\u201d U.S. sanctions and pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beijing\u2019s delegation to North Korea is headed by mid-level official Li Hongzhong, a politburo member of China\u2019s ruling Communist Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KCNA said senior North Korean officials led by Choe Ryong Hae, chairman of the standing committee of the country\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament, held a reception for Li\u2019s delegation in Pyongyang on Wednesday at which they honored Chinese soldiers who died while fighting alongside the North Koreans during the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Li said in a speech at the event that China is ready to promote the \u201csound and stable\u201d development in relations with the North, KCNA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analysts say Kim sharing the center stage with Shoigu and Li at a military parade would be a key accomplishment he could show to his domestic audience as well as a statement of defiance toward the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday, Shoigu also held talks with North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam that were aimed at \u201cstrengthening cooperation between our defense departments,\u201d Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KCNA reported that at a reception hosted by Kang, Shoigu praised the North Korean People\u2019s army under the leadership of Kim, saying it \u201chas become the strongest army in the world.\u201d Russian media reports did not include that comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABC News: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to discuss military issues and the regional security environment, state media said Thursday as the country celebrated the 70th anniversary of an armistice that halted fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War. The North\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim and Shoigu talked Wednesday in the capital, Pyongyang, and reached a consensus on unspecified \u201cmatters of mutual concern in the field of national defense and security and on the regional and international security environment.\u201d During the meeting, Shoigu conveyed to Kim… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33627,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33625\/revisions\/33627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}