Russia and N. Korea may sign agreement on preventing dangerous military activity by year-end - Naryshkin
MOSCOW. June 23 (Interfax) - Russia and North Korea may sign two key agreements before the end of 2015, Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said at a meeting with Chairman of the North Korean Supreme People's Assembly Choe Thae Bok in Moscow.
"In our opinion, it will be possible to sign two important documents - a treaty on mutual legal assistance in criminal cases and an agreement on preventing dangerous military activity - before the end of the year," Naryshkin said.
The Russian side has assessed the readiness of these two documents as high, he said.
The legal and contractual framework between Russia and North Korea should be developed and updated further, Naryshkin said.
The Russian authorities also believe that the current visit by the chairman of the North Korean Supreme People's Assembly to Moscow confirms the North Korean leadership's strong commitment to further promoting ties with Russia, Naryshkin said.
"I, for my part, would like to assure you that the Russian leadership's policy of good neighborly relations, friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation between our two countries remains unchanged as well," the State Duma speaker said.
Russia is also grateful to North Korea for having sent its high-ranking representative to attend the WWII victory anniversary commemorations in Moscow in May, he said.
The Russian authorities view contact between the Russian and North Korean parliaments as a crucial element of relations between the two states and highly value them, Naryshkin said.
Russia wants to promote both ties between the two countries' parliaments and their cooperation on international parliamentary platforms, he said.
Hopefully, efforts to update the Russian-North Korean Agreement on Mutual Exchanges will be completed in the foreseeable future, Naryshkin said.
"It is an important document, which would help to further enhance bilateral exchanges between our countries," he added.
The North Korean official, for his part, said North Korea's authorities "know very well that in the past few years the Russian leadership has been vigorously defending its strategic interests, acting as a counter-balance against the illegitimate policy, pressure and economic sanctions on the part of the U.S. and the West."
"We highly assess and fully support such steps," he said.
Choe also said that North Korea followed the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II with great attention.
Those events "demonstrated Russia's national might and the consolidation of its society and raised the country's international status by one notch," he said.
"The Korean people will always remember the heroic feats accomplished by the Soviet people during World War II. We highly appreciate that," the North Korean official said.
"Steps are being taken in certain parts of the world that belittle the Soviet people's role in the events of World War II, and attempts have been made to distort history," he said.
"We are actively countering such attempts. We are convinced that the policy of falsifying history is simply doomed to failure," he said.
