Special to WorldTribune.com
A senior Russian government official has confirmed that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un wants to expedite plans to visit Moscow and meet President Vladimir Putin.
Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said on Sept. 8 that she had met with Kim in Pyongyang in an hour-long conversation during which Kim agreed to visit Russia soon, but the timing and place of the Kim-Putin summit will be hammered out by diplomats.
“He confirmed he is ready and willing to make an official visit to Russia,” Matvienko was quoted by RIA as saying, adding that “he said he does not want to delay the visit.”
In June, Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Singapore to focus on denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula.
The Kim-Trump meeting created a direct channel of negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang without the usual manipulative middleman China.
Feeling isolated, Kim is desperate to find a big-country backer in dealing with Trump and has tried to use China as a counter-weight.
U.S. President Donald Trump has however adroitly obviated that possibility by putting China in the spotlight and by constantly threatening Beijing with much more severe trade and economic punishment if China attempts to derail once more his North Korean denuclearization initiative….
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