SEOUL, South Korea: Russian President Vladimir Putin has gifted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a Russian-made luxury limousine for his personal use, both countries announced Tuesday, in another sign of their expanding cooperation.
Observers said the shipment violates a UN resolution that bans supplying luxury items to North Korea, in an attempt to pressure the country to abandon its nuclear weapons.
Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, and another senior North Korean official accepted the gift Sunday and she conveyed her brother’s thanks to Putin, the Korean Central News Agency said. Kim Yo Jong said the gift showed the special personal relationship between the leaders, the report said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin gave Kim Jong Un a high-end Aurus Senat limousine that he showed to the North Korean leader when they met for a summit in Russia in September. Kim was shown the Anrus limousine at Russia’s main spaceport.
Kim “liked the car, and so the decision was made” to present it to him as a gift, Peskov said, according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency. “North Korea is our neighbor, our close neighbor.”
Tass earlier reported that Aurus was the first Russian luxury car brand, and it’s been used in motorcades of top officials since Putin first used an Anrus limousine during his inauguration ceremony in 2018.
Kim, 40, is known to possess many foreign-made luxury cars believed to have been smuggled into his country in breach of the UN resolution.
During his Russia visit, he traveled between meeting sites in a Maybach limousine that was brought with him on one of his special train carriages.
During an earlier Russia trip in 2019, Kim had two limos waiting for him at Vladivostok station — a Mercedes-Maybach S600 Pullman Guard and a Maybach S62. He also reportedly used the S600 Pullman Guard for his two summits with then-President Donald Trump in Singapore in 2018 and Vietnam in 2019. In 2018, Kim used a black Mercedes limousine to return home after a meeting with South Korea’s then-President Moon Jae-in at a shared Korean border village.
Kim’s possession of expensive foreign limousines shows the porousness of international sanctions on the North. Russia, a permanent Security Council member, voted for the ban on supplying luxury goods to North Korea, along with other international sanctions adopted in response to the North’s nuclear and missile tests.
North Korea and Russia have boosted their cooperation significantly as they are locked in separate confrontations with the United States and its allies — North Korea for its nuclear program and Russia for its war with Ukraine. Russia, along with China — another UN Security Council member — has repeatedly stymied the US and others’ bids to toughen UN sanctions on North Korea over its prohibited missile tests in recent years.
The US, South Korea and their partners accuse North Korea of sending conventional arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine, in return for high-tech Russian weapons technologies and other support. Such arms transfers would violate multiple UN resolutions banning any weapons trade involving North Korea.
After its foreign minister returned home following a Russia visit in January, the North’s state media reported Putin expressed his willingness to visit the North at an early date.
Putin gives Kim Jong Un a luxury limousine, in a violation of UN sanctions on North Korea
https://arab.news/2np72
Putin gives Kim Jong Un a luxury limousine, in a violation of UN sanctions on North Korea
- Observers said the shipment violates a UN resolution that bans supplying luxury items to North Korea
- Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, and another senior North Korean official accepted the gift Sunday and she conveyed her brother’s thanks to Putin
Kosovo, Serbia ‘need to normalize’ relations
- Kosovo, which hopes to join NATO, has also been cultivating relations with Washington in recent months, by removing tariffs on American products
PRISTINA: Kosovo and Serbia need to “normalize” their relations, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti said, several days before legislative elections where he is seeking to extend his term with more solid backing.
Kurti has been in office since 2021 and previous accords signed with Serbia — which does not recognize the independence of its former province — have yet to be respected.
“We need to normalize relations with Serbia,” said Kurti. “But normalizing relations with a neighboring authoritarian regime that doesn’t recognize you, that also doesn’t admit to the crimes committed during the war, is quite difficult,” he added.
Tensions between the two neighbors are regularly high.
“We do have a normalization agreement,” Kurti said, referring to the agreement signed under the auspices of the EU in 2023.
“We must implement it, which implies mutual recognition between the countries, at least de facto recognition.”
But to resume dialogue, Serbia “must hand over Milan Radoicic,” a Serb accused of plotting an attack in northern Kosovo in 2023, Kurti asserted, hoping that “the EU, France, and Germany will put pressure” on Belgrade to do so.
Kosovo, which hopes to join NATO, has also been cultivating relations with Washington in recent months, by removing tariffs on American products and agreeing to accept up to 50 migrants from third countries extradited by the US. So far, only one has arrived.
“We are not asking for any financial assistance in return,” Kurti emphasized. “We are doing this to help the US, which is a partner, an ally, a friend,” added the prime minister, who did not rule out making similar agreements with European countries.
Unable to secure enough seats in the February 2025 parliamentary elections, Kurti was forced to call early elections on Sunday, after 10 months of political deadlock during which the divided parliament failed to form a coalition.
“We need a decisive victory. In February, we won 42.3 percent, and this time we want to exceed 50 percent,” he said.
