The Duran Podcast - Putin meets Kim Jong Un. US warns more sanctions.

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Putin meets Kim Jong Un. US warns more sanctions.

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the meeting with North Korea and Russia. Kim and Putin said to meet. And the U.S. says that this meeting is about Russia begging North Korea for weapons and ammunition because Russia is riding out of weapons and they need North Korea to provide weapons for conflict in Ukraine. and the other narrative, which you've talked about, I've also mentioned, is that perhaps this is not so much about what North Korea can give Russia, but maybe this is about what Russia can give North Korea. I think that's what's really going on here. Anyway, what are your thoughts with this? Absolutely, that's exactly what I think.

I think people are getting this completely the wrong way around. I think that what's now happened is that with the breakdown in relations between Russia and the West, the Russians are now the, mending their fences with all their former friends. They've been making big moves to develop their relations with Cuba. We've talked about that in programmes. I mean, there's been, again, on spat, there's been talk about, you know, human trafficking rings trying to get Cubans to fight in the special military operation. Nobody should get overworked up about this.

This is not having any underlying effect on Russian-Cuban relations. But the Russians are now looking for... an increasingly powerful ally, one that gives them leverage in the North Pacific, one that gives them leverage over the United States, one that potentially gives them a great deal of leverage over South Korea, which has been drifting away from Russia. It previously had a good relationship with Russia, but it has, over the period of the existing presidency in South Korea,

moved towards the United States and provided the United States, and provided the United States and, by the way, Ukraine, as everybody knows, with 155mm shells. Anyway, these relationships, these other countries, it gives the Russians by improving their relations with North Korea leverage over these countries, over Japan, over South Korea,

to some extent, by the way, even China, because the Chinese have become accustomed to thinking of North Korea. Korea as their ally, unconditional ally, but the Russians are strengthening their relationship with North Korea and they're coming to North Korea deal. The priority, I think, will be less military cooperation, which I think people are making too much about, and more economic cooperation. They're going to try and develop that relationship.

Again, a fact which most people don't realize was. actually very close indeed during the Cold War. Like many people, most people, I assumed that North Korea during the Cold War had preserved some kind of equidistance between China and the Soviet Union. As we've gradually learned more about what was really going on in South North Korea at that time, it's become increasingly clear that North Korea was much, much more tightly integrated into the Soviet economic system than anybody knew and that it was providing the Soviets

with all kinds of valuable minerals and all kinds of things of that kind and even sub-conference for Soviet factories and the Soviets in turn were obviously providing a great deal of economic support to North Korea. So that relationship is going to be revived. And why shouldn't it be? I mean, you know, this is, yeah,

the sanctioned countries teaming up together. I mean, it makes sense. This shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, most of all, to the U.S. State Department. I mean, all the countries that have been sanctioned and that are being sanctioned are going to obviously work together. And you're getting more and more countries on the sanctions list working together. I mean, you know, this is expected. This is exactly right. This is exactly what's going to happen. So we see that Russia has now developed strong relations with Iran. It's developing strong relations with North Korea. And of course, as we discussed, it's also got improving, rapidly improving, and developing relations with Cuba as well. So that's what's happened. And of course, it's exactly as one might

have predicted. The United States previously was trying to keep all of these countries divided from each other. And now what it's seeing is that they're all coming together. And, well, why should that surprise anyone? Well, if the U.S. wants to stop this cooperation, the obvious move is to remove sanctions on one or all of these countries. I mean, but they can't do that. That's the obvious fix to this dilemma of Russia working with North Korea and Iran working with Russia and Venezuela, working with Russia and Iran working with Venezuela. I mean, the way to stop this is to stop sanctioning everybody because they've gone

sanction crazy as has the EU now the EU has now completely gone sanctions nuts and to start rolling back some of the sanctions yes i i completely agree but i mean they're not going to do that they're going to double and tripled and quadrupled down they're already threatening north career they're saying if north career provides shells to russia for use and the special military operation the united states will impose more sanctions on north career what kind of sanctions can they impose on North Korea that they haven't already imposed? I mean, it's, I mean,

the thing is becoming ridiculous. I mean, it's becoming stupid. But there are lots of, North Korea is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. The sanctions are now on North Korea are collapsing.

The Russians will go through the motions of maintaining the sanctions. because some of them are UN sanctions. But the reality is that they will find ways around them. So they will supply North Korea with fertilizer to get its agriculture back. They will provide North Korea with food.

They will probably provide North Korea with energy. Maybe they will open up gas pipelines. They will help the North Koreans with their railway system. They will do all of these things. And sooner or later, they will come to the South Koreans, with whom they have a long-standing relationship as well, one which I doubt the South Koreans will want to walk away from entirely, and they will say, well, look, we've now got this strong, good relationship with North Korea,

why don't you do that which we have been discussing with you for so long, which is agree to have those gas pipelines we're building to North Korea extended, to South Korea as well. And that will be a dramatic change in the geopolitical architecture. But that's, I'm sure, what the Russians are going to do. They're going to reestablish their relationship with North Korea, and they're going to build it up,

and they will move forward. People, you know, the Russians have always maintained a good relationship with North Korea, even during the time when China not so long ago had a tense relationship with North Korea over North Korea's nuclear program. The Russians at that time,

I remember Putin, for example, saying, you know, let's remember North Korea is a state, it's one that has to be taken seriously, it's one whose interests need to be respected, the Russians went out of their way to be more polite about North Korea than almost anyone else was.

So, of course, the North Koreans are reciprocating and noticed that it's Kim Jong-un who's going to Vladivostok to meet Putin. Putin, of course, has been to North Korea, is one of the very first countries he visited shortly after he became Russia's president. Why can't Russia work to remove the UN sanctions? Is that even possible? And you know, Trump,

he tried to to mend things with North Korea and then he did and the neo-cons got in the way he absolutely did well all right I mean on the first point

I'm assuming I mean I don't know the facts but I'm assuming that in order to live the sanctions there would need to be a vote in the UN Security Council and of course the Americans and the French and the British would veto such a vote if it ever came up so I think that's that's the

initial problem with lifting those sanctions, formally lifting those sanctions. But you can make sanctions a dead letter. And that's what's going to happen now. As for Trump, you're absolutely right. I mean, he made a serious effort to try to develop relations with Kim Jong-un to try to normalise the relationship with North Korea. The North Koreans are very interested. Kim Jong-un came to Singapore to meet Trump. He came also to Hanoy to meet Trump. And far from getting behind him, the entire American political class undermined what Trump was doing. And Bolton sabotaged it, launching even raids on North Korean embassies and things of that kind. And, of course, what is happening instead is that instead of meeting with Trump and developing,

and developing relations with the United States, well, Kim Jong-un is now meeting Putin and is going to develop relations with Moscow. And ultimately, of course, with China as well, because one thing one should say clearly is that everything that Putin and Kim Jong-un are going to talk about now, the Russians are going to report to Xi Jinping, and I mean, it's inconceivable that the Chinese will not be.

fully brief about all of these discussions and won't be invited to give the green light to them. Yeah. All right. Interesting how things work out. Anyway, the durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble odyssey, bitch shoots, telegram and X, and go to the Duran shop. Use the code. Good day. Get 10% off. Take care.