Belarusian President Lukashenko in North Korea for talks with Kim Jong Un
Despite the predictable consensus between strongmen, no one expects major agreements between the two countries
from our correspondent Marco Masciaga
NEW DELHI - When Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for the first of a two-day official visit, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un spared no honours. From the children waving flags to the soldiers in full uniform on white horses to the 21 shots fired into the air as is appropriate for large state visits, no stone was left unturned in raising the profile of the visit.
No one expects major agreements between the two countries
But, despite the predictable consonance of views between strongmen (Kim inherited the leadership of North Korea from his father in 2012; Lukashenko was elected in 1994 and has never left), no one expects major agreements between the two countries. Not even the fact that they are both sponsors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Belarus acted as the bridgehead; Korea provided artillery, missiles, ammunition and cannon fodder) should create the conditions for more substantial agreements than yet another Treaty of cooperation and friendship between two countries with little inclination towards the former and even less towards the latter.
'For Belarus,' explains Valery Tsepako, an opponent of Lukashenko in exile, 'no advantage will come from this visit. Ditto for North Korea. In fact, there is no trade between the two countries'. The leaders, he concludes, 'just want to show that they are not isolated'.
North Korea and Belarus are a little less on the fringes
Despite their well-established status as pariah states in the eyes of the international community, since Donald Trump returned to the White House, North Korea and Belarus are a little less on the sidelines. During his first term, Trump had met Kim three times within two years and, on one occasion, even briefly set foot on the other side of the North-South border.
Although the summits have yielded no results, Trump has repeatedly said he would be happy to see the Pyongyang dictator again. But for the time being Kim - who is not willing to question his nuclear programme, a prerequisite for starting talks - has refused any advances. Kim feels his shoulders are covered because Pyongyang is currently on good terms with both Moscow and Beijing, while his predecessors, father and grandfather, had historically favoured relations with one of the two neighbours to the detriment of the other.
