Russia has extended an official invitation to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to visit the country, a deputy foreign minister said Thursday, according to the TASS state news agency.
Moscow and Pyongyang have drawn markedly closer in recent years, with North Korea sending troops to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine in 2024 and deepening military cooperation under a mutual defense pact.
Pyongyang refuses to halt nuclear tests
North Korea's foreign ministry on Thursday rejected an international statement urging it to halt nuclear tests, with a spokesperson calling it "a grave political provocation against our state" by "hostile forces."
A meeting of ministers from the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty — a grouping of Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands — said any new nuclear test by North Korea would be irresponsible and unacceptable.
The meeting in New York on Tuesday urged Pyongyang to fully comply with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The spokesperson for North Korea's foreign ministry described the country as a responsible nuclear-armed state, in a statement carried by state media KCNA.
In another statement carried by KCNA earlier in the day, North Korea's foreign minister Choe Son Hui said Pyongyang's nuclear weapons status is irreversible.
Choe was responding to a separate meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week between the United States, South Korea and Japan at which they reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearisation of North Korea.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, agreed in 1996, bans "any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion" anywhere in the world, with the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons.