06:44
Kim to Putin: «Our countries have withstood the tests of history»
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un welcomed President Vladimir Putin with full honors and a large red carpet, desperately looking for weapons and ammunition for his war on Ukraine, who landed in Pyongyang in the middle of the night and well behind schedule. to the program. “Our two countries have withstood the tests of history, generation after generation and century after century,” the respected marshal said in the KCNA report, speaking about relations between North Korea and Russia after Putin stepped off his plane. . Kim “shaked Putin’s hand and hugged him warmly, expressing his joy and happiness to meet him again” after the summit at the Vostochny spaceport last September, the KCNA added. The two leaders went together in the same car to the Kumsusan State Guesthouse, crossing the streets of Pyongyang full of Russian and North Korean flags, welcome banners and giant posters of Putin. During the short trip “they exchanged their views and opened their minds to more confidently develop North Korea-Russia relations. Putin’s visit to the DPRK comes at an extraordinary moment, in which the traditional relations of friendship and bilateral cooperation have certainly entered a path of new global development”. Surprisingly, the state network Kctv has already shown images of the first greeting between leaders. The Tsar’s delay reduced his visit to the North to just one day. Putin was initially scheduled to arrive on Tuesday evening, but the Kremlin announced the landing in Pyongyang only in the middle of the night, delayed due to the previous stop in Yakutsk, a city in eastern Siberia. Putin is expected to attend an official banquet at midday and then hold a summit with Kim, before leaving for Hanoi, Vietnam, in the evening. Putin has a consolidated reputation as a latecomer: in 2014, for example, he made German Chancellor Angela Merkel wait 4 hours and 15 minutes, while in 2018 it was the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s turn to wait 2 hours and 30 minutes. The tsar, however, was punctual nine months ago in his meeting with Kim in the Russian Far East.
