Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered condolences to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over devastating floods that caused untold casualties and damaged thousands of homes, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
The North yesterday said that Putin had also offered “immediate humanitarian support” to aid its recovery efforts, to which Kim responded that he “could deeply feel the special emotion towards a genuine friend.”
Pyongyang said this week it had seen a record downpour on July 27 that killed an unspecified number of people, flooded dwellings and submerged swathes of farmland in the north near China.
Photo: Korean Central News Agency via Reuters
“I ask you to convey words of sympathy and support to all those who lost their loved ones as a result of the storm,” Putin said in a telegram to Kim. “You can always count on our help and support.”
“The message of sympathy from Moscow was conveyed to the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK” on Saturday, state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Kim thanked Putin for the outreach, but said the “already-established plans as state measures were taken at the present stage.”
Regarding the offer Kim said “if aid is necessary in the course, he would ask for it from the truest friends in Moscow,” KCNA said.
Pyongyang on Wednesday last week said that officials who neglected their disaster prevention duties had caused unspecified casualties, without providing details on the location.
On Saturday it said that that there were no casualties at all in the Sinuiju area, the region Pyongyang had experienced the “greatest flood damage.”
Media in South Korea, which has offered urgent support to the victims, said this week the toll of dead and missing could be as high as 1,500.
Kim lashed out at the reports, dismissing them as a “smear campaign to bring disgrace upon us and tarnish” the North’s image.
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