- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet on 25th April in the Vladivostok, a Russian Pacific port. The main agenda of the meet is to discuss the international stand-off over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
- The last North Korea-Russia bilateral meeting was in 2011, when then President Dmitry Medvedev met Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il.
- According to experts, Kim Jong-un’s visit to Russia is an effort to build foreign support after the failure of the second U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, Vietnam in February 2019. The U.N. Security Council has approved a total of 11 rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006. The North Korea wants to gain support so that there is some easing of the international sanctions which are damaging its economy.
- The US-North Korea summit in Hanoi had ended in failure with the two sides far apart on the central issues of disarmament and sanctions relief. The US had said that the talks had collapsed because North Korea insisted that all the sanctions the U.S. has imposed on North Korea be removed without North Korea firmly committing to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.
- On the other hand, North Korea had insisted that it had asked only for partial relief on sanctions in exchange for shutting down its main nuclear complex.
