CNN
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North Korea and Russia have pledged to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other is attacked, according to the text of a new landmark defense pact agreed by the two autocratic nations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a new strategic partnership agreement Wednesday in Pyongyang during a rare state visit by the Russian leader who said the two allies have ramped up ties to a “new level.”
North Korean state media reported on Thursday the full text of that pact, which also includes political, trade, investment, and security cooperation.
According to the text, Article 4 states that should either country “get into a state of war due to an armed aggression” the other “shall immediately provide military and other assistance with all the means at its disposal.”
The pact, which comes against the backdrop of Putin’s grinding war against Ukraine, is the most significant agreement signed by Russia and North Korea in decades and is seen as something of a revival of their Cold War-era mutual defense pledge. It also consolidates Kim’s powerful link with a world power that wields a veto on the UN Security Council
The newly released text will now raise several questions for Western observers, including whether Russia’s powerful nuclear deterrent now extends to North Korea, and vice versa, or whether the two nations will now hold joint military drills.
Putin referenced the defense clause after the meeting with Kim Wednesday, saying it provides “for the provision of mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement.”
Kim, meanwhile, called the new “alliance” a “watershed moment in the development of the bilateral relations.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
