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Arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea are actively advancing, a U.S. official said on Tuesday and warned leader Kim Jong Un that his country would pay a price for supplying Russia with weapons to use in Ukraine.
Providing weapons to Russia “is not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
The Kremlin said earlier on Tuesday it had “nothing to say” about statements by U.S. officials that Kim planned to travel to Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin and discuss weapons supplies to Moscow.
Kim expects discussions about weapons to continue, Sullivan said, including at leader level and “perhaps even in person”.
“We have continued to squeeze Russia’s defense industrial base,” Sullivan said, and Moscow is now “looking to whatever source they can find” for goods like ammunition.
“We will continue to call on North Korea to abide by its public commitments not to supply weapons to Russia that will end up killing Ukrainians,” Sullivan said.
On Monday, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Kim and Putin could be planning to meet, and the New York Times cited unnamed U.
