Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Tuesday condemned North Korea’s military pact with Russia as being “destabilizing and risky for the world.”

She made the remarks while speaking to reporters in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, as North Korea and Russia have been deepening their military and other cooperation.

“I also want to address the security pact between North Korea and Russia. Once again, this is destabilizing and risky for the world,” Wong said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new treaty on partnership during their summit in Pyongyang in June. The mutual defense pact calls for them to provide military and other assistance “without delay” if either country is invaded or enters a state of war.

“Once again, we see Russia acting in ways that are not conducive to peace, but rather escalatory,” Wong said, adding that North Korea’s weapons supplies to Russia for Moscow’s war in Ukraine are a flagrant violation of United Nations S
ecurity Council resolutions.

Pyongyang and Moscow have denied conducting any arms transactions.

Wong also called for further cooperation with South Korea in various sectors, ranging from economics to defense.

“We see South Korea as being very important in enabling the strategic balance in the region,” she said.

Regarding South Korea’s potential participation in the AUKUS security partnership, Wong said such interest “is a reminder that we need a strategic balance in the region.”

The AUKUS partnership, launched in September 2021, has drawn attention in South Korea after a U.S. official in March mentioned South Korea and Japan as potential partners under consideration by AUKUS members to cooperate in high-tech areas, known as Pillar 2, which covers quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and hypersonics.

Later in the day, Wong met with her South Korean counterpart, Cho Tae-yul, in Seoul to bolster cooperation in defense and other sectors.

The meeting comes two months after the foreign and defense min
isters of the two countries held the “two plus two” meeting in Melbourne in May.

Wong arrived in Seoul after attending a ministers’ gathering in Laos of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc and joining a meeting of Quad foreign ministers in Tokyo with counterparts from the United States, Japan and India.

Source: Yonhap News Agency