South Korea’s president has sounded a warning to fellow world leaders about the recent communication and possible cooperation between North Korea and Russia, saying any action by a permanent UN Security Council member to circumvent international norms would be dangerous and “paradoxical”. Speaking before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Yoon Suk Yeol invoked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit last week to Russia, which is one of the five permanent members of the council, the UN’s most powerful body.
Kim met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia’s far east. The two said they may cooperate on defence issues but gave no specifics, which left South Korea and its allies — including the United States — uneasy. “It is paradoxical that a permanent member of the UN Security Council, entrusted as the ultimate guardian of world peace, would wage war by invading another sovereign nation and receive arms and ammunition from a regime that blatantly violates Security Council resolutions,” Yoon told fellow leaders on the second day of the UN General Assembly’s annual gathering of leaders. He had been expected to raise the issue. Yoon said that if North Korea “acquires the information and technology necessary” to enhance its weapons of mass destruction in exchange for giving conventional weapons to Russia, that would also be unacceptable to the South.