Kremlin: Kim to visit Russia in late April

Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, will pay a visit to Russia and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in the second half of April, the Kremlin said on Thursday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

It will be the first official meeting between the two leaders.

In a brief statement on its website, the Kremlin said Kim will visit Russia on Putin's invitation, but gave no further details.

But according to Reuters reports, Moscow has been saying for months that it was working on such a meeting.

Agence France-Presse also reported that Russian media have been abuzz in recent days with rumors about the rare meeting between the two leaders. Some media speculated that Putin could meet with Kim in Vladivostok, the Far Eastern port city near the border with the DPRK.

A Pyongyang official was meanwhile seen inspecting a train station in Vladivostok, Russia, AFP reported, citing Russian state media reports.

A third US summit

The announcement of the upcoming summit came as US President Donald Trump's government is pushing for a deal with Pyongyang that would bring an end to nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Two earlier summits between Kim and Trump failed to reach an agreement on a denuclearization deal. US officials have floated the possibility of a third summit.

Kim said last week that he is open to a third summit with Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for a deal. Pyongyang blamed Washington's "unilateral demands" after the meeting between Trump and Kim in February in Hanoi, Vietnam, ended without an agreement, The Associated Press reported.

The United States in March imposed a new round of sanctions over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

For Kim, the meeting with Putin may allow him to expand his options in talks with Trump, AP said.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Thursday that Fiona Hill, an adviser to Trump, had been in Moscow for talks with her Russian counterpart Yuri Ushakov, AFP reported.

Stephen Biegun, US special representative for the DPRK, was also in Moscow to meet Russian officials to discuss ways to advance a "final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea(the DPRK)", the US State Department said.

Moscow has relatively warm relations with Pyongyang and provides some food aid, AFP said.

The last summit between Russian and DPRK heads of state came in 2011, when Kim's father Kim Jong-il traveled to Siberia to meet Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia's president.

(China Daily 04/19/2019 page12)