North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is actively expanding his network of like-minded leaders and welcomed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to Pyongyang for a summit last week.

The two  signed a friendship and cooperation treaty during the two-day visit and Lukashenko ordered the opening of an embassy in the North Korean capital.

Kim expressed solidarity with the Belarusian leadership "for achieving the socio-political stability and economic development of the country and defending sovereign rights in the international arena," according to the state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).

'A new development stage'

Lukashenko said that "although the two countries are geographically far apart, the bilateral relations based on the long-standing traditions of friendship and common feelings have entered a new development stage."

The two leaders discussed plans to increase exchanges and cooperation in a range of areas, including diplomacy, information-sharing, agriculture, education and public health.

To seal the developing friendship, Lukashenko presented Kim with a VSK assault rifle and said, through an interpreter, "If enemies invade, you can use it." Kim reciprocated with a gift of a cavalry sword in an ornate scabbard, KCNA reported.

With both Belarus and North Korea aligned with Russia, this summit in Pyongyang will move the Minsk-Moscow-Pyongyang axis forward, said Andrei Lankov, a Russian-born professor of history and international relations at Seoul's Kookmin University.

"An event such as this is a good way for these countries to increase their international prestige, to show that they are not 'isolated' and for both governments to counter the suggestion that they are not relevant," he told DW.

Leveraging his closer ties with Russian President Vladimir 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.

Kim and Lukashenko will also use their burgeoning alliance to expand relations with countries that oppose US influence and military might on the global stage, Lankov added, describing the two leaders as "demonstrating bloc solidarity to drive home the strength of the alliance."

Belarus eyes North Korean firepower

Chun In-bum, a retired lieutenant general in the Republic of Korea Army and now a senior fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies, a US-based think tank, said there was no public mention of an agreement on weapons, but he anticipates Belarus tapping into the North's missile technology and growing know-how in drone warfare.

"This is an extension of the North's diplomatic outreach efforts and when Lukashenko attended the military parade in Pyongyang, he would have been told that everything he could see was for sale," he told DW. "And he would also have been told that the things he could not see are also for sale."

That would include the North's most advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles, he said, while Pyongyang is known to also be investing heavily in nuclear technology, drones and missiles with even greater range and payloads.

On Sunday, just days after Lukashenko's departure, Kim was pictured in state media as attending a test for a new missile engine that analysts are linking to the regime's efforts to develop multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) technology.

"Lukashenko may very well have this sort of thing on his shopping list and there has to be a real concern here about proliferation," Chun said.

North Korea consolidating alliances

The North's drone program will also have benefitted dramatically from the deployment of troops to Russia's war in Ukraine, he said, and Belarus will be aware that know-how will be invaluable on the battlefield of the future.

Kim's wooing of Lukashenko coincides with a series of other diplomatic moves that are relatively minor on the surface but point to a more concerted effort to consolidate his alliances.

On Saturday, the North's KCNA news agency signed a media cooperation agreement with Russia's TASS news service.

On Monday, the first Air China flight between Beijing and Pyongyang landed in the North Korean capital after a six-year hiatus, with train services over the border also resuming earlier this month.

The same day, KCNA quoted Kim as thanking Chinese President Xi Jinping for a congratulatory message on his re-appointment as president of the North's state affairs commission, adding that he believes North Korean-Chinese ties are being elevated to a "new, high stage in keeping with the aspiration and desire of the two parties and the peoples of the two countries."

Chun added that the number of close ideological partners that North Korea can cooperate with remains limited, and he anticipates that Kim will continue to focus his efforts on developing ties with the three nations — Russia, China and Belarus — that he believes can best support his own aims.

Edited by: Keith Walker