Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un in the Far East, at the Vostochny cosmodrome, for negotiations.
The head of the DPRK arrived at the railway station of the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur region by train. The ceremony of his meeting with the Russian President took place at the main entrance to the launch vehicle assembly and testing building of the cosmodrome, writes “Kommersant”.
Among the meeting participants were Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev. Earlier, the media reported that a possible topic of the meeting was the supply of shells from the DPRK to Russia.
When asked whether Russia will help the DPRK build satellites, Putin replied: “That’s why we came to the Vostochny cosmodrome. The leader of the DPRK shows great interest in rocket technology, they are trying to develop space.” And when asked whether military-technical cooperation would be discussed, he replied: “We’ll talk about all the issues, slowly. There is time.”
The leaders of the two countries, Interfax reports, spoke briefly. It is expected that they will inspect a number of facilities at the cosmodrome, including the launch complex of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle, and then will hold Russian-Korean high-level negotiations, in which the head of the Ministry of Defense Sergei Shoigu will take part.
The DPRK leader said that his visit to Russia confirms the republic’s priority attention to relations with the Russian Federation as an issue of “strategic importance.” Kim Jong-un expressed confidence that these negotiations will raise relations between the two countries to a new level. He also stressed that Pyongyang will always stand with Moscow “in the fight against imperialism.” The Kremlin said that a press conference following the results was not planned.
How writes Air Force, in exchange for arms sales to Russia, Kim is expected to ask Putin to share advanced military technology so he can make progress on his own weapons program. Moscow’s weapons are believed to be decades ahead of Pyongyang’s.
One area where Kim is trying to make progress is his space program. In the past six months, he has twice tried to launch a spy satellite into orbit and failed.
The Kremlin today stressed that UN sanctions on North Korea will not interfere with its own ties with Pyongyang. According to the Russian state news agency TASS, when asked about long-standing sanctions against North Korea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied: “Russia maintains its position in the UN Security Council, but this cannot and will not hinder the further development of Russian-North Korean relations.”
Russian media write that Kim and Putin have already completed a personal meeting that lasted more than two hours. Now they will have a formal lunch consisting of duck salad, crab dumplings, fish soup, sturgeon with mushrooms and berry dessert.
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