KIM AND PUTIN MEET IN RUSSIA

 by New Worker correspondent

Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un held top-level talks with Vladimir Putin in Siberia last week. The DPR Korea leader travelled by train to meet Putin at the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East after touring rocket assembly and launch facilities at the spaceport. This is Kim’s first trip abroad in four years and his second trip to the Russia Federation. Kim last visited Russia in 2019.
At the space centre the leaders were taken on a tour of the Soyuz-2 space rocket launch facility and briefed on the progress in the assembly of a new Angara booster. They visited the installation and test facility, where one of the technical rooms was completely modernised for the assembly of the Angara rocket.
    Opened in 2016 the total area of the Vostochny (Eastern) space complex covers about 30 kilometres of land that includes a 28-metres-high launch structure, a command post, oxygen, as well as nitrogen and naphthyl technological units, and water storage tanks.
    The refuelling of launch vehicle tanks takes place from stationary oxygen, nitrogen, kerosene, and naphthyl units. The decision to run the filling hoses underground was made for safety reasons.
The Soyuz-2 command post building can withstand the impact of falling component stages of the launch vehicle, and the facility’s massive walls and ceiling are designed to protect personnel from a potential accident.
    Though Soyuz rockets are also launched at Plesetsk in Russia’s Far North and the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan the lifting capacity of the rocket to low orbits is nine tons if the booster is launched from the Vostochny spaceport. Soyuz-2 is a family of three-stage medium-class launch vehicles, developed and produced by the Progress missile space centre based in the Russian city of Samara.
    “I’m very glad to see you,” Putin told his guest, noting that this year marks 75 years of diplomatic relations with the Kremlin as well as north Korea's 75th founding anniversary and the 70 years since the armistice that ended the Korean war.
    "Your current visit is taking place in a truly comradely and friendly atmosphere," Putin said adding that Russia and the DPRK act in the name of peace, stability and prosperity in the region.
    "Our relations were founded during Korea’s struggle for freedom in 1945, when Soviet and Korean soldiers crushed Japanese militarists shoulder to shoulder. Even today we strive to strengthen the bonds of friendship and good neighbourliness. We act for the sake of peace, stability and prosperity of our common region," Putin said.
    Kim thanked his hosts and the Russian people for their very warm welcome saying "we felt the sincerity of our Russian friends from the moment we entered Russian territory,..our friendship has deep roots, and the very first priority for our country now is relations with Russia”.

    The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea believes that Russia is fighting a sacred fight for its sovereignty and security and the DPRK supports every decision Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government makes, the north Korean leader said during talks with his Russian counterpart.
"Now, Russia is fighting a sacred fight to protect its state sovereignty and security while combating hegemonic forces that oppose Russia,..we want to further develop ties [with Russia] Kim said adding that Democratic Korea would always be together with Russia in the fight against "imperialism”.
    When asked about cooperation with Democratic Korea in space, Vladimir Putin said that this is the very reason why they came to the Vostochny Cosmodrome. "The north Korean leadership is interested in rocket construction, they are also trying to develop space technologies," Putin said though there was “no particular hurry” to discuss these issues.
    Earlier Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the two leaders would discuss bilateral cooperation and "sensitive" issues, which he stressed "should not become the subject of any public disclosure or announcement".

DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Ukraine

28th February 2022

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA on February 28, as the U.S. piles up sanctions and pressure against Russia with the Ukrainian crisis as a momentum.
    As it became known, the situation of Ukraine is now drawing the attention of the international society.
The root cause of the Ukraine crisis totally lies in the hegemonic policy of the U.S. and the West which indulge themselves in high-handedness and arbitrariness towards other countries.
    The U.S. and the West, in defiance of Russia's reasonable and just demand to provide it with legal guarantee for security, have systematically undermined the security environment of Europe by becoming more blatant in their attempts to deploy attack weapon system while defiantly pursuing NATO's eastward expansion.
    The U.S and the West, having devastated Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are mouthing phrases about "respect for sovereignty" and "territorial integrity" over the Ukrainian situation which was detonated by themselves. That does not stand to reason at all.
    The greatest danger the world faces now is high-handedness and arbitrariness by the U.S. and its followers that are shaking international peace and stability at the basis.
       The reality proves positive once again that peace would never settle on the world at any time as long as there remains the unilateral and double-dealing policy of the U.S. which threatens peace and security of the sovereign state.

Democratic Korea rejects illegal UN sanctions!

By our Asia Affairs correspondent

US imperialism has steam-rollered through a set of economic sanctions against Democratic Korea, putting a cap on the amount of fuel it can buy and further restricting import of crude oil. It also banned textile trade with north Korea, targeting the second biggest export of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

All 15 members of the UN Security Council, including Russia and People’s China, approved the American-inspired resolution that was a dramatically scaled-down version of the first draft which called for an international freeze on all DPRK assets held abroad, and a ban on oil and most other imports to the DPRK apart from essential foods and medicines, which would be enforced by ‘stop and search’ imperialist warships on the high seas.

Some give China credit for scaling down the original draconian demands of US imperialism and its lackeys, but others suggest that the first draft was specifically written precisely to provide the Americans with bargaining lee-way with the Russians and Chinese to get unanimity on the Security Council.

The American imperialists are also threatening to impose sanctions on Russia and China, north Korea’s major trading partners, if they do not impose the anti-DPRK sanctions regime to the letter, whilst continuing to warn of more to come if the people’s government does not unilaterally abandon its nuclear deterrent.

Russian academician Georgi Toloraya thinks that this is nonsense. The Director of the Centre for Russian Strategy in Asia in Moscow said that the US position, which expects Russia to support sanctions against north Korea whilst at the same time sanctioning Russia, is “absurd.”

“The Americans want to deprive the north Koreans of heat, to expel all their guest workers who are needed by Russia in the Far East, and also to stop the export of textiles from the DPRK. What does that have to do with the nuclear missile programme?” Toloraya said.

But Democratic Korea’s ambassador to the Russian Federation says that no sanctions will make his country change its policies and that the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent was needed to deter the hostile policy of the United States and prevent nuclear war.

“We have lived under US sanctions for decades, under the harshest of sanctions,” Kim Yong Jae said. “But we have acquired everything we wanted to. If the US hopes that our position would be shaken and changed, that is an illusion,” he told the Russian media.

“The sanctions resolution of the UN Security Council has been forced by the US, which uses the council as a tool, and is illegal. We fully reject and strongly condemn this resolution,” Ambassador Kim said.

“Instead of acknowledging the reality and making the right choice, the US is using our most justified measures of self-defence to try and strangle our country,” he said.