North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday at their very-first summit venue, intended to express the United States was not the only one with enough power to engage with a solitary communist state with talks aimed at Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
Putin and Kim held their first day of the summit at Pacific city of Vladivostok, Russia, just two months after Kim held his second summit with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February, which ended abruptly due both leader’s large differences as Trump focused on Kim’s last year commitment of full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and Kim stressed over US sanctions relief.
According to Reuters news reports, the first-session, comprised of one-on-one (face-to-face) discussions with few aides present, has lasted for two times long as of those 50 minutes which was allotted in line with the schedule.
During an interval in-between the talks, Putin stated: “We talked, of course, about the situation on the Korean peninsula, we exchanged views on how and what we can do so that there are good prospects for an improvement in the situation.”
Kim, who arrived in Vladivostok yesterday via train, stated the situation over the Korean peninsula “is an issue that the world is very interested in”.
Kim said he was seeking “to discuss issues of strategic stability and joint management of the situation in the future and to develop our traditional relations to meet the demands of a new century”.
The second session of Kim-Putin talks, which included larger teams of a delegation from both sides, has ended without any statements. Then both leaders attended a gala dinner. Kim then left the summit venue, waving to Putin as his car drove off.