North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is slated to hold his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, scheduled for next week.
According to ANI news reports, Kim’s government official was quoted by state-run Yonhap news agency as saying, “Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to make a trip to the far east region around April 12. Chances are fairly high that a summit between Russia and North Korea could take place around the time.”
The Russian leader was due to pay a visit to China to address One Belt One Road summit, which is expected to take place on April 26 and 27. On the sidelines of the summit, Putin is also expected to meet Kim.
The senior officials of Russia and North Korea are reportedly travelling to each other’s nation to initiate the preparation of the summit. Russian interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev had earlier this month paid a visit to Pyongyang.
The news agency also noted that N Korea has strengthened its bilateral and diplomatic relations with Moscow after the failed second summit between Kim and his United States counterpart Donald Trump in February in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The Kim-trump summit was ended abruptly without reaching any nuclear agreement as Trump stressed over Kim’s commitment to full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and Kim stressed for imposed US sanction reliefs.