Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un yesterday met for their first-ever summit, vowing to seek closer ties as they look to counter US influence.
Putin emerged from the talks saying that like the US, Russia supports efforts to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and prevent nuclear conflicts, but he insisted that Pyongyang needs guarantees of its security and sovereignty, and took a veiled swipe at Washington for trying to strong-arm North Korea.
“We need to ... return to a state where international law, not the law of the strongest, determines the situation in the world,” Putin said.
Photo: AFP
The summit in Vladivostok came with Kim locked in a nuclear standoff with Washington and Putin keen to put Moscow forward as a player in another global flashpoint.
The two leaders shook hands and shared smiles before heading into one-on-one talks that lasted nearly two hours, longer than expected, at a university campus on an island off the Pacific coast city.
In brief statements before their meeting, both men said they were looking to strengthen ties that date back to the Soviet Union’s support for North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather.
Kim Jong-un said that he hoped to turn the modern relationship with Moscow into a “more stable and sound one,” while Putin said the visit would give a boost to diplomatic and economic ties.
Putin said he supported Kim Jong-un’s efforts to normalize relations with the US and hoped to find out “what Russia can do” to help with the issue of denuclearization.
The meeting — which Kim Jong-un described as “a very meaningful exchange” — later expanded to include other officials.
About five hours after he arrived, Kim Jong-un left the campus following a long final handshake with Putin, waving through the window of his black limousine as it drove away.
Putin then addressed reporters alone, saying that he would fill in Washington on the results of the talks.
“There are no secrets here, no conspiracies... Chairman Kim [Jong-un] himself asked us to inform the American side of our position,” said Putin, who was due to fly on to Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum.
The meeting was Kim Jong-un’s first with another head of state since returning from his February Hanoi summit with US President Donald Trump, which broke down without a deal on the North’s nuclear arsenal.
It followed repeated invitations from Putin after Kim Jong-un embarked on a series of diplomatic overtures last year.
Since March last year, the formerly reclusive leader has held four meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), three with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, two with Trump and one with Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong.
Russia has already called for the sanctions to be eased, while the US has accused it of trying to help Pyongyang evade some of the measures — accusations Russia denies.
There were no concrete announcements or agreements, but analysts said yesterday’s meeting was valuable to both sides.
“For North Korea, it’s all about securing another exit. China talks about sanctions relief, but it doesn’t really put it into action,” said Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “For Russia, North Korea is elevating it back to one of the direct parties, on the same footing as China.”
Among the issues that were likely discussed was the fate of about 10,000 North Korean laborers working in Russia and due to leave by the end of this year under sanctions.
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