South Korea announced a violation of sanctions due to the trip of North Korean representatives to the Russian Federation

Travel by some North Korean officials to Russia, who are subject to UN sanctions, is a violation of these restrictions, said South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Lim Soo-seok.

“Travel abroad by personnel subject to sanctions under existing UN Security Council resolutions is prohibited,” leads his words Yonhap Agency.

As the agency notes, the trip was attended, in particular, by the deputy chairman of the Central Military Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), Lee Pyong-chol, who fell under UN sanctions in 2017, and the deputy head of the party’s Central Committee department for military industry, Kim Jong-sik.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman also said that if military cooperation between North Korea and Russia becomes a reality, it will have a very negative impact on relations between Moscow and Seoul. South Korea, he added, would be forced to reconsider its “response” while strengthening relations with the United States.

The country’s National Security Council, in turn, called Russia will fulfill its obligations under UN sanctions prohibiting arms trade and military cooperation with Pyongyang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Russia on September 12 at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On September 13, Putin and Kim Jong-un met at the Vostochny cosmodrome. First, the leaders held talks in an expanded format, and then continued the meeting in a tete-a-tete format. Commenting on the negotiations, Putin said that “a very frank exchange of views took place on the situation in the region, on bilateral relations.”

Judging by the president’s words, the parties also spoke about cooperation in the military sphere, Vedomosti noted. “There are certain restrictions, Russia complies with all these restrictions, but there are things that we, of course, can talk about, we discuss, we think about it. There are prospects here too,” Putin said.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on September 13 that Russia will build relations with its neighbors in a way that is beneficial to it. “In any case, the full range of relations implies both dialogue and interaction in sensitive areas, such as military interaction, exchange of views on the most pressing issues in the field of security,” he said.