March 25 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko began his first visit to North Korea on Wednesday for talks that will cement ties between two close allies of Russia's Vladimir Putin.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has provided Moscow with millions of rounds of ammunition for its war in Ukraine, and sent troops to help Russia expel Ukrainian forces who invaded its western Kursk region in August 2024.
Belarus allowed itself to be used as a launchpad for Russia's invasion in February 2022, and subsequently agreed to host Russian tactical nuclear missiles on its territory, which borders three NATO alliance countries.
Lukashenko flew in to a red-carpet welcome in the capital Pyongyang, where he was greeted by Kim's foreign minister and dozens of small children waving the flags of both countries.
Lukashenko later met Kim, and the Belarusian side published a photograph of the two men embracing.
He also paid his respects at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, a mausoleum where the preserved bodies of former rulers Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il - grandfather and father of the current leader - are displayed.
North Korea and Belarus have both lived for years under international sanctions - the former mainly because of its nuclear weapons programme and the latter over its human rights record and backing for Putin in Ukraine.
But both have engaged at different times with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump met Kim three times in 2018 and 2019, during his first term in the White House, but their encounters failed to yield substantive results. Trump said last year he would "love another meeting", which Kim said could happen if the U.S. dropped its "absurd obsession" with getting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons.
Trump last year re-established direct contact with Lukashenko, who had been treated as a pariah by his predecessor Joe Biden. In recent months, the U.S. has begun to ease sanctions on Belarus in return for releases of political prisoners.
Lukashenko's trip to North Korea comes just six days after he met Trump's envoy John Coale and announced the freeing of 250 more detainees. The U.S. side has said Lukashenko may soon visit the White House.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
