A top Biden administration official said that Russia’s” full accept” of North Korea could make Kim Jong Un more vulnerable when it comes to threatening South Korea and exporting arms overseas, as well as aiding Pyongyang in refusing to participate in Washington’s visit to resume nuclear talks.
As North Korea ships weapons to help power President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, Pyongyang has benefited from the “whole gamut” of improved diplomatic ties with Russia, from economic and security assistance to high- profile visits by top Russian officials, the State Department’s senior official for North Korea, Jung Pak, said in an interview Monday.
This could give this once-isonite nation the legitimacy it once did not deserve, and it should not have,” Pak said. We’re concerned about how that might influence Kim’s risk calculus and how that might influence whether or not his leash is actually longer.
According to Pak, North Korea has so far shipped 40 ballistic missiles used in Ukraine and 11, 000 containers of munitions to Russia. That has helped Putin’s forces as they became more obstinate after their initial offensive failed to conquer Kyiv and as a wave of Western sanctions aimed at stifling Russia’s economy eroded its defense industry base.
Shin Wonsik, the country’s defense minister, claimed that Seoul estimates that the containers could hold about 3 million rounds of 152 mm artillery shells used by the Kremlin to bombard Ukraine. As a result of the government’s efforts to boost Putin’s arms stocks, Kyiv’s ammunition supply has decreased while military aid has been stymied in the U.S. Congress.
Russia in return is providing North Korea with food, raw materials and parts used in weapons manufacturing, Shin said. He continued, adding that the military assistance could raise Pyongyang’s threat to the region because it has helped Kim stabilize the costs of basic items.
The cost of the artillery alone is likely to be in the billions, and Russia’s assistance could be the biggest boost to the economy of North Korea since Kim took office. Despite numerous satellite images released by research organizations and the U.S. government that show the movement of weapons from North Korea to Russia and then to munitions dumps close to Ukraine’s border, Moscow and Pyongyang have consistently refuted the accusations of arms transfers.
Russia’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution to extend a panel of experts ‘ access to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal for 15 years has, according to Pak, one significant benefit of its growing diplomatic ties with Moscow.
There is now a real chance that North Korea’s high-profile relationship with Russia will make its weapons more appealing to other nations, Pak said. As the conflict in Gaza drags on, South Korea has already claimed that North Korean weapons have been used by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, against Israel.
” The luster of legitimacy could give other bad actors ideas about North Korea’s weapon systems”, she said. ” And North Korea has had a long history of proliferation in the Middle East, Africa, elsewhere. And we do n’t want that to start blossoming into other proliferation relationships. Therefore, this is not just a problem in Northeast Asia.
Kim has tested some of his most recent weapons systems while presenting them to state media. Kim’s administration’s latest test of a simultaneous launch of short-range ballistic missiles in what it billed as its quick counterattack capability in a “nuclear trigger” system was praised by North Korea’s propaganda apparatus on Tuesday.
China’s firms have also been crucial in reestablishing the Kremlin’s defense industrial base with dual-use technologies and other components, the U.S. has said, despite North Korea’s repeated violations of Western sanctions and efforts to put an end to Russia’s war machine. Chinese businesses and banks are also to blame for facilitating payments to North Korean entities, which funds Kim’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
At a press briefing, department spokesman Matthew Miller informed reporters that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken intends to discuss North Korea’s provocations when he travels to China in the coming days.
While Janet Yellen, the secretary of state, recently traveled to China, threatened Chinese financial institutions that helped Russia’s war with sanctions, it was unclear whether the United States would take the same steps when it comes to Chinese banks that are connected to North Korea.
Asked whether the U. S. is currently weighing a similar threat of sanctions on Chinese banks involved with Pyongyang, Pak said:” I’m not going get into specifics, but we of course are considering all of the measures, in terms of both positive and negative actions, that we can take to get better sanctions compliance, sanctions implementation”.
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