Partners in crime

Vladimir Putin's defiant friendship pact with Kim Jong-un and North Korea marks a return to cold war politics - and raises big questions not just for Washington and Seoul, but also for Beijing

- Andrew Roth

A quarter of a century ago, Vladimir Putin flew to Pyongyang to sign a "friendship treaty" with Kim Jong-il that helped revive Russia's relations with North Korea without obliging the two sides to come to each other's aid in case of a military attack.

With his visit last week, Putin has in effect gone further into the past, signing a deal with Kim Jong-un reminiscent of the 1961 security pact that existed under the Soviet Union during the cold war. But today Russia is engaged in a hot war in Ukraine that Putin has made his foreign policy priority, and a nuclear North Korea has become a crucial lifeline of munitions for his military.

"The treaty that Putin signed with Kim Jong-un was a return to the cold war, but of course in the cold war North Korea had no nuclear weapons," said Dr Edward Howell, the Korea Foundation fellow with the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House, and a lecturer at the University of Oxford.

While last week's summit was years in the making, it nonetheless marked a watershed in Russia's relationship with North Korea, and one that US officials have warned could destabilise an uneasy balancing act in the region.

"Russia has now put in writing just how willing and committed it is to deepening and expanding its cooperation with North Korea," said Jamie Kwong, a fellow in the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Kim admired Russian space technology and fighter jets during a summit last year with Putin in Russia's far east, and his wishlist could include technologies that would aid North Korea's space and missile programmes, as well as economic and energy support.