MOSCOW, September 13. /TASS/. The content of the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may remain secret for the time being, Alexander Vorontsov, the head of the Korea and Mongolia Department at the Institute of Asian Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences, has told TASS.

"The official results that have been announced are quite laconic. They were presented in a laconic form. For this reason, we can assume that the main part of the negotiations took place in a closed mode. Just as it had been announced both by [Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry] Peskov and our Foreign Ministry, the sensitive issues to be discussed were not intended for public disclosure. I think it is reasonable to assume that this is how it all happened and that most of the agreements reached remained and will remain secret for the time being," he said.

The analyst also noted that the program of the talks "was substantially rich and non-standard."

He drew attention to the DPRK leader’s visit to the Vostochny Spaceport and added that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had been the sole foreign leader to have been received at the space facility earlier.

"These are also eloquent indications of trust and good-neighborly relations between Russia and the DPRK, geared to expanding and strengthening cooperation in various areas, including military-technical ones and space," Vorontsov emphasized.

About cooperation between the two countries in the economic sphere the expert said that "the DPRK’s leader brought with him a very large team of top-ranking officials, including those representing the government’s economic segment." Vorontsov also mentioned UN Security Council sanctions against the DPRK. He noted that the Russian side "can assess and interpret them independently."

"This implies the search for some non-standard and creative solutions and ways of expanding and enriching our economic cooperation," he continued. "Perhaps, not all of them are subject to a wide public discussion, to disclosure, so to say."

The expert pointed out that the visit was also devoted to "extremely crucial issues in the field of security, to finding ways to jointly respond to the many new threats and challenges that have emerged over the past year, in recent months in the Far East, in Northeast Asia, and in general in the world for both countries."

"I personally assess the results of this visit, its results, as certainly very important and meaningful," he added.

Strategic cooperation

Konstantin Asmolov, a leading researcher at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang was becoming strategic "in view of the fact that in the era of global turbulence the world is beginning to split up into military-political blocs."

"This trend is serious and bound to last," he said. He also drew attention to the fact that Kim's visit to Russia was "the first after three years of COVID-19 isolation."

Vorontsov characterized the DPRK leader's visit as "a telling development."

"Still, after easing the three-year period of self-isolation due to the COVID pandemic, this is the first visit abroad, to Russia. Pyongyang prioritizes Moscow in its foreign policy," the analyst concluded.