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Russia Signs Deal to Hand Over North Korean Refugees

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters / Vedomosti / Modified by MT

Russia has signed an agreement with North Korea regarding the deportation of ?€?illegal?€? immigrants, State Duma opposition deputy Dmitry Gudkov, said in an online post Wednesday.

Officially, the agreement calls for ?€?transferring and accepting [readmitting] individuals who have illegally left and are illegally present on the territory of the Russian Federation and of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,?€? Russia's Federal Migration Service ?€” whose deputy chief co-signed the deal with a North Korean deputy foreign minister ?€” said in a statement earlier this week.

?€?Russian-Korean international agreements on readmission will help reduce the number of illegal migrants arriving in Russia or in the DPRK [North Korea],?€? the statement said.

But Russians are unlikely to flee illegally across the border to North Korea's impoverished totalitarian dictatorship. The agreement appears to amount to a pledge by Moscow to hand over North Korean dissidents seeking refuge in Russia.

The announcement of the deal comes shortly after the federal migration service refused temporary asylum to a North Korean citizen who said that deportation would mean death or imprisonment in his homeland's ?€?death camps,?€? according to a report by Russia's RBC news agency on Jan. 27.

?€?Now there is yet another pretext for deporting him ?€” an agreement has been signed,?€? Gudkov, the opposition-minded Russian lawmaker, wrote in his blog on the independent Ekho Moskvy radio station's website.

?€?Officially, [this was done] in order to strengthen ties between the countries,'?€? he wrote. ?€?Strengthening the friendship with blood, how else.?€?

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