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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday that a treaty it signed with North Korea earlier this year provides for “strategic cooperation” in all areas, but declined to be drawn on how a mutual defence clause in the agreement could be put into practice.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un when he visited Pyongyang in June, and said it included a mutual assistance clause under which each side agreed to help the other repel external aggression.
Asked if this meant that Russia could be drawn into backing Pyongyang in a conflict on the Korean peninsula or that North Korea could side with Russia in a conflict with the West, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the treaty wording was “quite unambiguous” and needed no clarification.
The pact “implies truly strategic deep cooperation in all areas, including security”, Peskov told reporters.
Tensions have been rising on the Korean peninsula after North Korea blew up sections of inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the heavily fortified border, prompting South Korea’s military to fire warning shots.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy this week accused North Korea of transferring personnel to Russia’s armed forces, saying his intelligence agencies had briefed him on “the actual involvement of North Korea in the war” in Ukraine.
The United States says North Korea has supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and ammunition. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied arms transfers but have vowed to boost military ties, possibly including joint drills. Peskov said last week that the alleged involvement of North Korean troops in Ukraine was fake news.
Asked if a forthcoming partnership treaty between Russia and Iran might also include a mutual defence element, Peskov said on Tuesday: “No. When it is ready, then we will be able to talk about its content.”
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Andrew Osborn)