Belarus’ foreign minister will visit North Korea for possible talks on Russia cooperation

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Belarus’ foreign minister is to visit North Korea this week, the two countries announced Monday, a trip expected to focus on discussions of trilateral cooperation involving Russia in the face of their separate confrontations with the West.

Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov will come to North Korea on Tuesday for a three-day trip at the invitation of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported in a one-sentence report. Belarus’ Foreign Ministry issued a similar brief statement on his planned trip.

Neither country provided details of Ryzhenkov’s itinerary in North Korea, though observers say he’s expected to meet his North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui. Ryzhenkov would be Belarus’ first foreign minster to travel to North Korea, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

Koh Yu-hwan, a former president of South Korea’s government-funded Institute for National Unification, said Ryzhenkov’s meeting with North Korean officials will likely center on establishing trilateral North Korea-Belarus-Russia partnerships, because North Korea recently signed a major defense pact with Russia and Belarus has long-running close ties with Russia.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang and signed a deal stipulating mutual military assistance if either country is attacked.

The U.S., South Korea and their partners also accuse North Korea of having supplied conventional arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. Both North Korea and Russia have denied that accusation.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, for his part, allowed Russia to use his