VIENNA, June 20. /TASS/. The Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Russia and North Korea was a response to the growing standoff in East and Southeast Asia triggered by US efforts to forge alliances with Asian countries in the region, Gerhard Mangott, an Austrian political scientist, expert on Russian politics and professor at the University of Innsbruck, opined.
"We can say that [the treaty between Russia and North Korea] is a kind of response to the growing confrontation of blocs in East and Southeast Asia," he told the Puls 24 TV channel. The expert explained that over recent years, the US has been actively trying to create alliances with India, Japan, South Korea and Australia, as well as to develop defense cooperation with these countries. Against this background, Moscow's readiness to provide necessary assistance in case of aggression against Pyongyang enshrined in the treaty is aimed at making Washington and its allies realize that there is a force in the region ready to confront them if the US or South Korea takes steps against the DPRK.
Mangott said it is for a reason that it remains unknown whether the treaty’s provision on mutual assistance implies arms supplies and financial support or sending the Russian armed forces to North Korea in case of aggression against it. "That will never be made public because the point of the treaty is different: to prevent South Korea and its allies, Japan and the United States, from knowing how far Russia would go in the event of a military clash between the two Koreas," Mangott said.
Putin paid a state visit to Pyongyang on June 18-19. It was a return visit at Kim’s invitation. Kim invited Putin to visit North Korea when he was on a visit to Russia in September 2023. Putin’s talks with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un yielded a treaty on comprehensive strategic partnership, an agreement on cooperation in the areas of medicine, medical education and science, as well as an agreement on the construction of a motor bridge across the Tumannaya River on the border between the two countries.