MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from his first summit with Kim Jong Un on Thursday saying that North Korea needs international security guarantees, not just U.S. pledges, to consider giving up its nuclear arsenal.
Putin's call for more multinational involvement -- and guarantees from more than just the United States -- contrasts sharply with President Donald Trump's strategy of one-on-one dialogue with the North Korean leader.
It also reinforced North Korea's attempt to link security and sanctions relief as twin demands in negotiations over its nuclear program.
For his part, Kim sought to stress his friendly relations with the Kremlin.
"It is my and my government's firm strategic position that the strategic and traditional friendly relations between North Korea and Russia be strengthened and improved ceaselessly to fit the needs of the new century," Kim said after the meeting.
Meeting in the city of Vladivostok in Russia's Far East, two months after Kim's failed talks with Trump in Hanoi, Putin raised the option of reviving international talks with North Korea if Kim was not satisfied with U.S. positions on security issues.
"They [North Koreans] only need guarantees about their security. That's it. All of us together need to think about this," Putin told reporters after the talks with Kim.
Six-party talks with North Korea -- aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program -- fell apart a decade ago when Pyongyang pulled out; the negotiations included Russia, China, South Korea, the United States and Japan. Since then, North Korea made significant advances in its nuclear and missile programs.
Putin suggested Russia might welcome a revival of the talks that were previously derided by Trump, who repeatedly cited them as the prime example of the failed tactics of previous administrations. Trump has claimed that his own leader-to-leader diplomacy with Kim stood a far better chance of bringing about the North's denuclearization.
Trump called off some war games and dangled the possibility of a Korean War peace-signing, but direct U.S. pledges of support for the Kim regime's hold on power are highly improbable, experts say.
"Nobody is in a position to give them the security guarantees they would like to have," said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul. "They want a guarantee not only against an outside attack but also against possible internal discontent. ... On balance, it's a nonstarter."
Putin said he would press the security issue on Kim's behalf with Beijing and Washington.
"We do share interests with the United States. We stand for full denuclearization," Putin told reporters. But he also hinted at a longtime Russian argument that past U.S. military action against governments at odds with the United States, such as those of Iraq and Libya, made it hard today to persuade North Korea to disarm.
"The most important thing, as we have discussed today during the talks, is to restore the rule of international law and revert to the position where global developments were regulated by international law instead of the rule of the fist," Putin said. "If this happens, this would be the first and critical step toward resolving challenging situations such as the one on the Korean Peninsula."
Putin also mentioned the promise of long-stalled Russian proposals to foster peace along by building trans-Korean railroads, natural gas pipelines and electricity transmission wires, but said the United States has dissuaded South Korea from signing on. South Korea, Putin said, has a "deficit of sovereignty."
On another point, Putin said Kim urged him to explain the nuances of North Korea's position to Trump. Such an interlocutor role could be meaningful in light of Trump's apparent admiration of the Russian leader.
Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, saw the summit as burnishing Russia's credentials.
"The fact that Kim Jon Un asked Vladimir Putin to brief the Chinese and U.S. leadership on the results of the summit attests to Russia's significant role as a guarantor of security in the Asia-Pacific region," Slutsky was quoted as saying by state news agency Tass.
Putin reiterated Russian backing for a gradual process of trading disarmament for sanctions relief.
"If we take one step forward and two backward, then we would fail to achieve the desired result," Putin said. "But it will eventually be possible to achieve this goal, if we move forward gradually and if we respect each other's interests."
According to Russian state media outlets, the one-on-one meeting between Putin and Kim lasted almost two hours, much longer than the 50 minutes allotted.
At a banquet after the talks, Kim raised a glass of wine to Putin, saying, "I had a frank and substantive exchange of opinions with Mr. Putin on the development of Russian-Korean relations and the provision of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula."
Dressed in his usual Mao-collared black outfit, Kim sat down for an intimate dinner with a handful of people, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at Far Eastern Federal University, whose main halls were decorated with flags of both countries.
After their meal, the leaders attended a Russian dance and choir concert involving North Korean performers.
Putin was scheduled to leave Vladivostok soon after his talks with Kim for a summit in Beijing, where he said he will discuss his recent meeting with North Korea.
"And we will just as openly discuss this issue with the U.S. leadership," Putin said. "There are no secrets. Russia's position always has been transparent. There are no plots of any kind."
Kim, who arrived by armored train on Wednesday morning, will stay on in Russia to tour Vladivostok, a port city some 435 miles from Pyongyang on the Pacific Coast. He plans to visit the city's aquarium and enjoy a culinary feast of traditional Russian fare, including caviar. He is expected to return to North Korea today.
Information for this article was contributed by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Simon Denyer of The Washington Post; by Andrew E. Kramer and Choe Sang-Hun of The New York Times; and by Vladimir Isachenkov and Eric Talmadge of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/26/2019