Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks in North Korea’s capital on Thursday and signed a friendship and cooperation treaty as the two Russian allies draw closer in the face of their confrontations with the U.S.-led West.

Lukashenko, who was in Pyongyang on a two-day official visit, hailed the document as “fundamental,” and said that relations between the two countries are “entering a new stage,” according to his press service. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Friday that the leaders discussed boosting high-level cooperation and visits and exchanged their views on unspecified “international and regional issues of mutual concern.”

Belarus is a close ally of Russia. Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory as a staging ground for the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and later authorized the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Kim has also tilted his foreign policy toward Moscow in recent years, sending thousands of troops and large quantities of weapons to support Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine while portraying the North as part of a united front against Washington.

Lukashenko and Kim last met in September 2025 in Beijing.

“Yes, we didn’t have close cooperation, largely due to our own fault. But I am sincerely pleased to note that cooperation has now significantly intensified,” Lukashenko said after Thursday’s meeting.

Leveraging his closer ties with Putin, Kim has been pursuing an increasingly assertive foreign policy aimed at expanding relations with countries confronting Washington as he seeks to break out of isolation and strengthen his regional influence.

Chang Yoon-jeong, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles affairs related to North Korea, said the meeting with Lukashenko aligns with Kim’s foreign policy embracing the ideas of a “multipolar world order” and an “anti-West alliance.” The countries could also be pursuing stronger three-way cooperation with Moscow, she said.

Lukashenko, however, has also been improving relations with the Trump administration, which announced Thursday it had eased restrictions on a group of Belarus-linked financial and potash companies. The move comes as the war in the Middle East squeezes global fertilizer supplies and limits access for some U.S. farmers.

John Coale, Trump’s special envoy to Belarus, described in a recent interview on how he sought to build rapport with Lukashenko through informal, even coarse, exchanges over a boozy lunch while pressing for the release of political prisoners.

At the meeting between their leaders, Belarusian and North Korean officials also signed a number of other agreements and memorandums on cooperation in specific areas, such as education, healthcare, agriculture, and others.

“In today’s reality of a global transformation, when the global powers openly ignore and violate international law, independent countries need to cooperate more closely, consolidate efforts aimed at protecting their sovereignty and improving the well-being of our citizens,” Lukashenko said.

Lukashenko’s press service quoted Kim expressing “solidarity and full support” for Belarus and speaking out “against unlawful pressure on Belarus from the West.” KCNA said Lukashenko told Kim their governments share the “same opinion on international affairs.”

The leaders exchanged gifts, with Kim presenting Lukashenko with a sword and a large vase bearing the image of the Belarusian leader. Lukashenko gave Kim an assault rifle manufactured in Belarus, among other things. “Just in case enemies show up,” Lukashenko said.

Kim also hosted Lukashenko at an ice-skating show and a formal reception before personally seeing him off at Pyongyang’s airport, according to Belarusian and North Korean reports.

Kim has suspended all meaningful dialogue with Washington and Seoul since the collapse of his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019 over U.S.-led sanctions on the North. Kim’s government has been rejecting dialogue offers by Trump after the American president entered his second term, and has called for Washington to drop the demands for North Korea’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for reviving talks.