Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had a “substantial discussion” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about the Korean Peninsula Thursday.
He said he and Kim exchanged views on how to improve the situation in the region, Reuters reported. Kim, meanwhile, reportedly said both leaders discussed how to “strategically improve regional stability.”
“We just had a thorough face-to-face conversation,” Putin said, according to Russian news agency Tass.
“We talked about the history of our insterstate relations, the current situation and the prospects for the development of our bilateral ties,” he noted. “We discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula and shared our positions on the measures to be taken for the situation to have good prospects for improvement.”
Kim met Putin on an island off the Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Thursday. It is the first time the leaders have met face to face.
The meeting comes two months after denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang collapsed in Hanoi. For Russia, the meeting was seen as a way to show the world that Russia can be a global power broker. For North Korea, the meeting has helped to show the U.S. that it has “options.”
At the start of the summit, Putin said he hoped Kim’s visit “would help us better understand by what means we can reach a settlement on the Korean Peninsula, what we can do together, what Russia can do to support the positive processes under way.”
