TEHRAN, Apr 24 - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crossed the border into Russia Wednesday for a first summit with Vladimir Putin, as Pyongyang seeks closer ties with its traditional ally amid a nuclear deadlock with the United States.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The meeting on Thursday in the Pacific coast city of Vladivostok will be Kim's first face-to-face talks with another head of state since returning from talks with US President Donald Trump in Hanoi that collapsed in February.
Russia has relatively warm ties with Pyongyang and provides some food aid, and Putin has long expressed his readiness to meet with North Korea's leader.
Their meeting will come less than two months after talks in Hanoi between Kim and US President Donald Trump -- their second summit -- broke up without reaching covclusion.
Kim has met Chinese President Xi Jinping four times in the space of a year but is now looking for wider international support in the standoff, analysts say.
Moscow has already called for international sanctions on the North to be eased, while the US has accused it of trying to help Pyongyang evade some of the measures -- accusations Russia denies.
Source: AFP
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