Press TV link that works

Further to yesterday’s brief remarks on the Press TV interview regarding likely results of Putin’s ongoing visit to Pyongyang, I present a working link which a kind reader has found and forwarded.

https://odysee.com/PressTV-2024-06-18-Panel-on-Russia-N.Korea-Chang,-Doctorow:3

I ask that you listen closely to the moderator. What I see and hear from this official Iranian state broadcaster is hard working professional journalism, without cant, without ideological lenses applied.   Is this not a state with which the West can and should enter into normalized relations?

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Funktionierender Link zu Press TV

Im Anschluss an die gestrigen kurzen Bemerkungen zum Press-TV-Interview über die wahrscheinlichen Ergebnisse von Putins derzeitigem Besuch in Pjöngjang präsentiere ich einen funktionierenden Link, den ein freundlicher Leser gefunden und weitergeleitet hat.

https://odysee.com/PressTV-2024-06-18-Panel-on-Russia-N.Korea-Chang,-Doctorow:3

Ich bitte Sie, dem Moderator genau zuzuhören. Was ich von diesem offiziellen iranischen Staatssender sehe und höre, ist hart arbeitender professioneller Journalismus, ohne Übertreibung, ohne ideologische Brille. Ist dies nicht ein Staat, mit dem der Westen normalisierte Beziehungen aufnehmen kann und sollte?

Transcription below by a reader

PressTV: 0:10
It’s News Review time. Stay tuned. The Russian president has vowed to support the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the wake of U.S. pressure, blackmail, and military threats. Vladimir Putin made the comment in a letter published by the North Korean media ahead of his visit to Pyongyang. The letter says that Moscow and Pyongyang would continue to oppose Western ambitions of hindering the establishment of a multipolar world. Putin also hailed the DPRK for supporting Russia’s special military operations in Ukraine. According to Putin, the visit will help boost the two countries’ ties and upgrade them to a higher level. That’s Putin’s first trip to Pyongyang in 24 years. In September 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un traveled to Russia and discussed military cooperation between the two.

1:02
Joining me in this episode of News Review are two guests, Jennifer Chang, our correspondent in Seoul. Also with me is Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst in Brussels. Good to see you both. So let’s cross over to Seoul first. Jennifer, tell us about this rare visit by Russia’s President Putin and also how this is seen there in South Korea.

Jennifer Chang: 1:25
Well, this is seen as an existential threat to South Korea because the Russian president is supporting North Korea all the way. In March, Russia vetoed the extension of a body of experts at the UN in charge of monitoring that sanctions be enforced against North Korea. So basically that means that Russia opposes any US-led UN sanctions on North Korea, and the US is therefore crippled in sanctioning North Korea. There is really nothing the U.S. can do about this now.

2:05
And North Korea has gained an equal footing, in a way, with the U.S., because now it, with Russian military support, will be able to nuke not just the U.S. city anywhere on the U.S. mainland, but it can nuke all of the U.S. mainland all at once. And there will be no place for Americans to escape to. They will all be annihilated with North Korea’s nuclear weapons, because now North Korea can get from Russia help for its nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles mounted on submarines, it can get nuclear submarines, it can get spy satellites that can see anywhere into the U.S. mainland and can thwart all U.S. missile defenses.

2:55
And furthermore, it can get help for miniaturization of its nuclear warheads that it’s going to mount on its ICBMs. So this is really terrible news for the U.S. And there is nothing that the U.S. can do about this most glorious moment in North Korean history, where Russia and North Korea are basically teaming up to fight what President Putin called the U.S.’s blackmail and its threats against North Korea’s security. He vows to make North Korea and Russia independent, security-wise and financial-wise, not relying on the U.S. financial transaction system.

PressTV: 3:42
Now, Gilbert, how do you look at this? And what’s wrong with that? You have the U.S. actually with Japan, with South Korea, they engaged in, you know, military rehearsals every now and then, and then North Korea warns them against this. North Korea says this is rehearsal for war, and they don’t simply pay attention. Now we have Russia under pressure from the U.S. especially, getting closer to other countries, to China, to North Korea, to Iran and others.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 4:11
I’m surprised that my fellow panelist is so concerned about the threat to the United States. I don’t think that’s what this is all about. I think the threat is to the neighborhood, and it’s a direct answer to the efforts of Washington to bring together South Korea and Japan, for the purposes of their containment policy vis-a-vis China.

So for the neighborhood, the Russian visit is extremely important for their security. I wouldn’t worry so much about missiles going to the United States, if I was sitting in Seoul, I would worry much more about the ability of the North Koreans to handle South Korea and to handle Japan with Russian assistance. That is what it’s all about, as far as I see, and in regard to the security dimension of this visit.

4:58
However, the Russian news, which I was listening to earlier this afternoon, makes it very clear that the security dimension, which is being so closely watched in the West, is only a a small part of what this visit is all about. The visit is about really normalizing relations with North Korea in a whole range of areas. Mr. Putin is not traveling by himself. He has a large government delegation, including the governor of the Maritime Province, which is the Russian Far Eastern territory that borders Korea.

5:34
The purpose will be to discuss logistics. There is only a rail line connecting North Korea to Russia. They will have to add automobile, truck roads to link the countries. There also will be discussion, surely, of using North Korean territory to run a Russian pipeline to the Pacific for purposes of export of hydrocarbons. There are many different projects of an economic nature, but we’ll also hear about tourism. As strange as it may sound, there are many Russians who want to go to Pyongyang and to visit other parts and ski resorts, if you can imagine that, in North Korea. And workers, gastarbeiter from North Korea, resuming a position they had before these sanctions, when they were supplying tens of thousands of workers to Moscow and other Russian cities for limited-time work permits.

PressTV: 6:37
Okay, Gilbert, how would the U.S. consider this? I mean, would this kind of… They say that this could kind of create maybe some deterrent and countries joining each other to stand against the U.S. But at the same time, U.S. is provoking the Taiwan thing, the one-China policy. That’s a red line. They say, “We have not overstepped.” But China believes they have. China has warned them against this multiple times. So, given all this, what’s the prospect for security and tranquility in that part of the planet?

Doctorow: 7:09
Well, I would not be surprised if there are conditions in the secret agreements, and a large part of what will be signed will not be divulged to the public. Not to the Russian public, not to the world at large. But I would not be the least surprised if there are elements in this foreseeing a greater Russian presence in North Korea or Russian arms in North Korea. Again, what I see Mr. Putin doing in his symmetrical answer to the existential threats the United States is making to Russia via the Ukraine war and via its forward placement of NATO aggressive arms in the Baltics, in Poland and so forth, is to respond in kind now.

7:52
I would not be the least surprised if the Russians and the North Koreans agree on threats to American military bases in Japan and in Korea. That would be entirely logical and in keeping with the latest Russian response to American threats.

PressTV: 8:10
Okay. I appreciate that. Jennifer Chang in Seoul and Gilbert Doctorow in Brussels. And thank you for watching this episode of the News Review.