Kim in Russia for talks on N-deal deadlock

Vladivostok (Russia), Apr 24 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was looking forward to his first talks with President Vladimir Putin as he arrived in Russia on Wednesday seeking support in Pyongyang's nuclear deadlock with the United States.

Kim’s train rolled in to  Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok, where the summit will take place on Thursday. He was received by an honour guard and military band.

The talks will be Kim’s first face-to-face meeting with another head of state since negotiations with US President Donald Trump in Hanoi collapsed in February.

Putin was due to arrive in Vladivostok on Thursday, then fly on after the talks for another summit in Beijing.

The talks follow repeated invitations from Putin since Kim embarked on a series of diplomatic overtures last year.

Since March 2018, the formerly reclusive North Korean leader has held four meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, three with South Korea's Moon Jae-in, two with Trump and one with Vietnam’s president.

Analysts say he was now looking for wider international support in his standoff with Washington, while Moscow was keen to inject itself into another global flashpoint.

In Hanoi, the cash-strapped North demanded immediate relief from the sanctions imposed on it over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. But the talks broke down in disagreement over what Pyongyang was prepared to give up in return.

Moscow 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.

Moscow was a crucial backer of Pyongyang for decades and their ties go back to the founding of North Korea, when the Soviet Union installed Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung as leader. — AFP