North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Russia by train yesterday, a day before his much-anticipated summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin that comes amid deadlocked diplomacy on his nuclear program.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency published photographs of Kim, dressed in a black coat and a fedora, meeting with Russian officials at Russia’s Khasan train station near its border with the North.
Russian news agency Tass quoted a local official as saying that Kim was given flowers, bread and salt at the station.
Photo: AFP / Press Service of Administration of Primorsky Krai / Alexander Safronov
Kim was traveling to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok for a summit with Putin today. He became the first North Korean leader to travel to Russia since his father, Kim Jong-il, visited in 2011.
Earlier yesterday, North Korean state media confirmed Kim’s departure aboard his khaki-green armored train from an undisclosed location in North Korea.
Yonhap, citing an analysis of North Korean photos on Kim’s departure, speculated that he might have left from a rural area, not Pyongyang.
Kim was expected to arrive in Vladivostok late yesterday afternoon and attend a dinner reception hosted by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev, according to South Korean media.
After his summit with Putin, Kim might tour neighboring facilities or landmarks before departing for home tomorrow, the reports said.
Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov told Russian media that the summit would focus on North Korea’s nuclear program and that Russia would seek to “consolidate the positive trends” stemming from US President Donald Trump’s meetings with Kim.
In February, Kim’s second summit with Trump in Hanoi ended without any agreement because of disputes over US-led sanctions. There have since been no publicly known high-level contacts between the US and North Korea, although both sides say they are still open to a third summit.
Kim wants the US to ease the sanctions to reciprocate partial disarmament steps he took last year.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS