Putin meets North Korea's top envoy amid growing military cooperation

SEOUL, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin met with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui during her visit to Moscow, the Kremlin said, amid growing military cooperation and diplomatic exchanges between the two isolated regimes.

Choe met with Putin late Tuesday after a separate meeting with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. The two diplomats briefed the Russian president on their discussion, the Kremlin said.

Russia and North Korea have held a series of exchanges over the past several months, including a visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Russia in September.

The ongoing contacts "mark the beginning of an intensive and demanding, but also fruitful and rewarding, work to expand our relations across the board," Lavrov said ahead of his meeting with Choe on Tuesday.

Lavrov thanked North Korea for its support, "including on matters related to the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine."

Choe said that the meeting would be "the launching point for taking bilateral relations to a new level this year," according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Washington and its allies have said that the North is supplying artillery and equipment to Moscow for its attacks on Ukraine, including ballistic missiles. Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned three Russian entities and one Russian tied to the transfer and testing of North Korean ballistic missiles since late November.

North Korea, meanwhile, is widely believed to be receiving advanced technology for its space and missile programs in return. In November, North Korea launched what it said was its first military spy satellite, and Kim Jong Un has said Pyongyang will launch three more satellites in 2024.

Choe's visit to Moscow may also be laying the groundwork for an upcoming trip by Putin to North Korea. The Russian president accepted an invitation from Kim during their summit in September, but further details have not yet been released.

"A standing invitation is on the agenda and Putin will definitely take advantage of it at a convenient time and based on a mutual agreement between the parties, of course," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

The growing ties between Pyongyang and Moscow come as North Korea strikes an increasingly bellicose stance toward Seoul.

In a policy speech to North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament on Sunday, Kim Jong Un called for changing the constitution to define the South as its "primary enemy state and invariable principal enemy."

Kim also rejected the North's long-standing official policy goal of peaceful reunification with the South.

"We can specify in our constitution the issue of completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming [South Korea] and annexing it as a part of the territory of our ​republic in case a war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula," Kim said, according to KCNA.