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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui at a banquet for the former to mark his visit to North Korea on Oct. 18. (KCNA/Yonhap)

“We favor maintaining unconditional dialogue on security issues on the Korean Peninsula on a regular basis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui on Thursday.

He appeared to emphasize the importance of strengthening North Korea-Russia ties while remaining wary of closer ties among South Korea, the US and Japan.

Lavrov, who arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday, held a separate press conference after his meeting with Choe that day, according to reports from Russian media outlets such as RIA Novosti.

“The United States, Japan and South Korea intensifying military activity here and Washington working toward moving strategic infrastructure, including nuclear aspects, here, are of great concern to us and our North Korean friends,” Russia’s top diplomat said at the conference.

Lavrov stressed that Russia, along with North Korea and China, opposes the “unconstructive and dangerous policy” of the three countries and seeks to pursue “a course toward de-escalation and inadmissibility of escalating tensions.”

While noting the summit between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un that took place last month and the high-level dialogue of his visit that day, the Russian diplomat said that he could “confidently say that relations have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level.”

In short, he expressed caution about the closeness of the US, South Korea and Japan and signaled his intention to strengthen cooperation between North Korea, China and Russia.

During the meeting of their respective foreign ministers, Russia and North Korea are believed to have focused on the implementation of the agreements reached at the Kim-Putin summit, including the issue of Putin’s visit to North Korea, and ways to develop bilateral relations.

In particular, North Korea and Russia are scheduled to hold the 10th meeting of their intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation in Pyongyang this coming November to focus on economic cooperation.

The commission will be chaired by Yun Jong-ho, North Korea’s minister of external economic relations, and Aleksandr Kozlov, Russia’s minister of natural resources and ecology.

“There is a possibility that they will cover various agendas, including food aid and Russian-North Korean economic and logistics cooperation centered on Rajin and Khasan,” a South Korean Unification Ministry official said.

The Rodong Sinmun reported on Thursday that Lavrov, in a speech at a welcome banquet, said that Russia “fully supports all the policies all the policies the DPRK government and people” have adopted.

In her own speech at the banquet, Choe said that the relationship between North Korea and Russia, “firmly consolidated through generations and centuries, [is] now further developing into an unbreakable comradely relationship and into a future-oriented eternal relationship.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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