{"id":211218,"date":"2019-04-24T05:15:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T09:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=211218"},"modified":"2019-04-24T05:15:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T09:15:10","slug":"north-koreas-kim-arrives-in-russia-before-summit-with-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/24\/north-koreas-kim-arrives-in-russia-before-summit-with-putin\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea’s Kim arrives in Russia before summit with Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Kim, dressed in a black coat and a fedora, met with Russian officials at Russia’s Khasan train station near its border with the North. (File Photo<\/a>: Kim Jong Un\/ Faceboo<\/a>k)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of \u2014 North Korean leader\u00a0Kim\u00a0Jong Un arrived in Russia by train on Wednesday, a day before his much-anticipated summit with President Vladimir\u00a0Putin\u00a0that comes amid deadlocked diplomacy on his nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Kim, dressed in a black coat and a fedora, met with Russian officials at Russia’s Khasan train station near its border with the North. The official website of the Primorye governor released pictures of\u00a0Kimstepping off the train and given the traditional Russian bread and salt at the station.<\/p>\n

Kim\u00a0then sat down with local officials as well as a Russian deputy foreign minister before setting off to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok for a summit with\u00a0Putin\u00a0on Thursday. He became the first North Korean leader to travel to Russia since his late father,\u00a0Kim\u00a0Jong Il, visited in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard a lot about your country and have long dreamt of visiting it,\u201d\u00a0Kim\u00a0was quoted as saying. \u201cIt’s been seven years since I took the helm, and I’ve only just managed to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim\u00a0evoked his father’s \u201cgreat love for Russia\u201d and said that he intends to strengthen the ties between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Earlier Wednesday, the North’s state media confirmed\u00a0Kim’s departure aboard his khaki-green armoured train from an undisclosed location in North Korea. Yonhap, citing an analysis of North Korean photos on\u00a0Kim’s departure, speculated\u00a0Kim\u00a0may have left from a rural area, not Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

Kim\u00a0was expected to arrive in Vladivostok around late Wednesday afternoon and attend a dinner reception hosted by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev, according to South Korean media. After his summit with\u00a0Putin,\u00a0Kim\u00a0may tour neighbouring facilities or landmarks before departing for home on Friday, the reports said.<\/p>\n

Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov told Russian media the summit will focus on North Korea’s nuclear program, noting that Russia will seek to \u201cconsolidate the positive trends\u201d stemming from President Donald Trump’s meetings with\u00a0Kim.<\/p>\n

In February,\u00a0Kim’s second summit with Trump in Hanoi ended without any agreement because of disputes over U.S.-led sanctions. There have since been no publicly known high-level contacts between the U.S. and North Korea, though both sides say they are still open to a third summit.<\/p>\n

Kim\u00a0wants the U.S. to ease the sanctions to reciprocate some partial disarmament steps he took last year. But the U.S. maintains the sanctions will stay in place until North Korea takes more significant denuclearization steps.<\/p>\n

Some experts say\u00a0Kim\u00a0could try to bolster his country’s ties with Russia and China. Others say it’s not clear how big of a role Russia can play in efforts to restart the nuclear negotiations. The summit could allow\u00a0Putin\u00a0to try to increase his influence in regional politics and the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

\u201cKim\u00a0wants to show that he’s co-operating with Russia too, rather than looking to only the U.S. and China. But I think it’s not easy for Russia and China to provide North Korea with practical assistance that leads to the inflow of dollars,\u201d said Chon Hyun-joon, a former senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.<\/p>\n

North Korea has increasingly expressed frustration at the deadlocked negotiations. Last week, North Korea tested a new weapon and demanded U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to be removed from nuclear talks.<\/p>\n

Putin’s adviser added that the Kremlin would try to help \u201ccreate preconditions and a favourable atmosphere for reaching solid agreements on the problem of the Korean Peninsula.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ushakov pointed at a Russia-China roadmap that offered a step-by-step approach to solving the nuclear standoff and called for sanctions relief and security guarantees to Pyongyang. He noted that the North’s moratorium on nuclear tests and scaling down of U.S.-South Korean military drills helped reduce tensions and created conditions for further progress.<\/p>\n

Ushakov said that\u00a0Putin-Kim\u00a0summit’s agenda will also include bilateral co-operation. Russia’s trade with North Korea is minuscule at just $34 million last year, mostly because of the international sanctions against Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

Russia would like to gain broader access to North Korea’s mineral resources, including rare metals. Pyongyang, for its part, covets Russia’s electricity supplies and investment to modernize its dilapidated Soviet-built industrial plants, railways and other infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Vladivostok has been seeing a number of unusually strict security measures. Maritime authorities said that the waters around Russky Island, off the southern tip of Vladivostok, would be temporarily closed to all maritime traffic.<\/p>\n

The island has a university with a conference hall and is seen as a likely summit venue.<\/p>\n

Separately, local media reported that some platforms at Vladivostok’s main train station would be closed for several days, and that buses will be rerouted from the train station Wednesday. News website Vl.ru reported on road construction to even out the entrance at the train station, possibly to allow\u00a0Kim’s limousine to drive straight off the platform.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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