Incoming US president Donald Trump has addressed the presence of North Korean troops on Russia’s frontline with Ukraine, but stopped short of denouncing Pyongyang.
Instead, he pointed to his friendship with Kim Jong Un – even though the North Korean government recently rebuked him publicly for flaunting their supposedly close relationship during the US presidential campaign.
Mr Trump said North Korean soldiers getting involved in the Ukraine war was a “very complicating factor”.
“When North Korea gets involved, that is another element that is a very complicating factor,” he said on Thursday while speaking about the geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East and eastern Europe.
He made the comments during an interview with Time after the American magazine picked him as its “Person of the Year” for the second time.
The US, South Korea and Ukraine have accused North Korea of sending more than 10,000 troops to aid Russia’s war effort. The Pentagon says the troops have largely been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a ground offensive of its own earlier this year.
Ukraine and its allies have also accused North Korea of shipping artillery systems, missiles and other conventional weapons to replenish Russia’s inventory.
Russia and North Korea have neither confirmed nor denied these claims, though Moscow and Pyongyong have spoken of their deepening military cooperation and Mr Kim has vowed to “invariably support Russia in its war” while calling out Nato’s “reckless” eastward advance.
Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence treaty in June which requires each to provide immediate military assistance if the other is attacked.
In his interview, Mr Trump said that he and Mr Kim “get along very well” and the Republican said he was probably the only Western leader to have such a relationship with Pyongyang.
“I know Kim Jong Un, I get along very well with Kim Jong Un. I am probably the only one he’s ever really dealt with. When you think about it, I am the only one he’s ever dealt with.”
Mr Trump was called out during his previous term as president for heaping praise on autocrats, including Mr Putin. He also cultivated a friendship with Viktor Orbán, the right-wing leader of Hungary accused of overseeing a democratic backslide in the country.
Mr Trump is the only American leader to have held three summits with Mr Kim, in 2018 and 2019, for denuclearisation talks. The diplomatic effort collapsed over disagreements about the timing of lifting US economic sanctions and Pyongyang’s own measures to wind down its nuclear programme.
“He wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters,” Mr Trump said of Mr Kim in 2018. “We fell in love.”
The chances of Mr Trump quickly resuming diplomacy and dialogue with Pyongyang when he enters the White House are slim, experts said, as ties between the two countries have only deteriorated further under Joe Biden.
Pyongyang’s ties with Russia and the weakening sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang would present further challenges in the diplomatic push to resolve the nuclear standoff with Mr Kim, they said.
