Kim Jong-il visits Russia for talks with Dmitry Medvedev

North Korean leader arrives by armoured train on first visit to Russia in nine years, to discuss natural gas pipeline deal Kim Jong-il has travelled by armoured train to eastern Siberia for a summit with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. The North Korean leader arrived in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, a Buddhist province near Lake Baikal, Russian news agencies reported. Kim’s motorcade left town in the direction of Turka, a picturesque village on the shores of Baikal. The Yonhap news agency said the Medvedev-Kim summit was expected to take place on Wednesday. The talks could focus on a deal for a pipeline that would stream Russian natural gas through the North’s territory to the South. South Korean media said the North could earn up to $100m a year. There were signs that preparations were being made for Kim to visit Turka. The Baikal Daily website quoted residents as saying that a local police officer had been making the rounds to record the names and addresses of all the people in the village. The visit is shrouded in mystery. A few people managed to take photos of Kim at his previous stop on Sunday, but heavy police cordons kept the press in Ulan-Ude out of the train station. Kim’s train crossed into Russia on Saturday morning and passed through Khabarovsk before heading west along a railway running roughly parallel with Russia’s borders with China and Mongolia. It is Kim’s first visit to Russia in nine years. North Korea is also pushing to restart six-nation nuclear disarmament talks in exchange for aid, after more than a year of tension during which it shelled a South Korean border island and allegedly torpedoed a South Korean warship. Russian military officials arrived in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, on Monday for a five-day visit. The Russian defence ministry said the talks would focus on the renewal of military co-operation between the countries, possible joint exercises “of a humanitarian nature” and an exchange of friendly visits by Russian and North Korean ships, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. The North, which has long experienced chronic food shortages, has been hit with heavy flooding in recent weeks. The Korea Herald newspaper stated bluntly a strain of thinking in Seoul in an editorial on Tuesday: “It does not take genius to guess why Kim is visiting Russia. [He] desperately needs economic aid.” Kim Jong-il North Korea Russia Dmitry Medvedev Europe guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 22, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.