The US expects that cooperation between Russia and North Korea will be a huge challenge in the coming years – World

WASHINGTON, November 23. /TASS/. The US administration believes that cooperation between Russia and North Korea will be a serious challenge for Washington for many years, said Mira Rapp-Hooper, special assistant to the US president and senior director for East Asia and Oceania on the National Security Council.

The current administration is concerned “about how far (North Korea-Russia relations – TASS) have come so quickly,” she said. Speaking at a seminar at the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies (the organization’s activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation), Rapp-Hooper said that this cooperation has reached a scale that “could not have been imagined a few years ago.”

She also recalled the US administration’s version that North Korea allegedly sent troops to active fighting in Ukraine, stating that in response, “Russians <…> likely to provide top-notch technical assistance to the North Koreans on command, as well as how to protect them in international institutions and seek to legitimize their nuclear weapons capabilities.” “I suspect this will be a huge challenge for the administration for years to come,” Rapp-Hooper noted.

In turn, US First Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that Russia’s cooperation with North Korea “will not only be urgent, but a growing problem that cannot be ignored.”

Commenting on earlier “satellite photos” released by Seoul that allegedly show the presence of North Korean soldiers in Russia, President Vladimir Putin called such photos a “serious matter.” However, he emphasized that NATO soldiers have been directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict for a long time. Putin pointed out that the strategic partnership treaty between Moscow and Pyongyang includes a clause on common defense.

For her part, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow’s strategic cooperation with Pyongyang is nothing unusual or extraordinary, despite the West trying to demonize it. She emphasized that those who want peaceful cooperation with Moscow have nothing to fear.