Kim Jong-un to meet Putin for 1st time in Russia, Kremlin says

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will visit Russia later this month, the Kremlin said Thursday, in a meeting that offers President Vladimir Putin an opportunity to emerge as a broker in the long-running nuclear standoff and raise Russia's profile in regional affairs.

The Kremlin said in a brief statement Thursday that Kim will visit Russia "in the second half of April" on Putin's invitation, but gave no further details.

Russian media have been abuzz in recent days with rumours about the first one-to-one meeting between the leaders.

Putin is set to visit China later this month, and some media speculated that he could meet with Kim during a stopover in Vladivostok, the far eastern port city near the border with North Korea.

Kim said last week that he is open to a third summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, but set the year's end as a deadline for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for Pyongyang to commit to give up its nuclear facilities, weapons and missiles. The North Korean leader blamed the collapse of his February summit with Trump on what he described as unilateral demands by the U.S.

Pyongyang, in turn, demanded that Washington remove Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from nuclear negotiations. North Korea's foreign ministry accused Pompeo of playing down the significance of Kim's comments.

In a statement issued under the name of Kwon Jong-gun, director general of the American Affairs Department at Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry, North Korea accused Pompeo of "talking nonsense" and misrepresenting Kim's comments.

During a speech at Texas A&M on Monday, Pompeo said Kim promised to denuclearize during his first summit with Trump and that U.S. officials were working with the North Koreans to "chart a path forward so we can get there."

"[Kim] said he wanted it done by the end of the year," Pompeo said. "I'd love to see that done sooner."

The North Korean statement said Pompeo was "misrepresenting the meaning of our requirement" for the negotiations to be finalized by the year's end, and referred to his "talented skill of fabricating stories." It said Pompeo's continued participation in the negotiations would ensure that the talks become "entangled," and called for a different counterpart who is "more careful and mature in communicating with us."

Renewing Russian-North Korean ties

For Kim, meeting Putin may allow him to expand his options in talks with Trump and also balance the influence of China, the main ally and sponsor of the communist North.

Russia was involved in the Chinese-led six-nation talks, aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and security guarantees. The North withdrew from those talks in 2009.

Moscow maintained close ties with Pyongyang during the Soviet era, building dozens of factories and key infrastructure, sending supplies and providing weapons for the North Korean military. Those ties withered after the 1991 Soviet collapse, when Moscow cold-shouldered former Soviet allies amid the nation's economic meltdown.

Shortly after his first election, Putin sought to re-invigorate ties with North Korea, visiting Pyongyang in July 2000 en route to a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations in Okinawa. In an apparent bid to steal the global limelight, Putin then boasted about securing a promise from then-leader Kim Jong-il to abandon North Korea's missile program in exchange for foreign help in launching satellites, but he suffered a setback when Kim quickly disavowed his statement.

Despite the gaffe, Putin continued courting North Korean's leader, who crossed Russia by train to visit Moscow in 2001. He again visited regions in Russia's far east the following year, and made another trip across the border in 2011.

While Russian-North Korean military co-operation was stopped by the United Nations sanctions, Moscow supplied grain and provided humanitarian aid to the North, and tens of thousands of North Korean migrant labourers have worked in Russia's underpopulated Far East.

The Kremlin has written off North Korea's Soviet-era debts, but attempts at broader co-operation have stalled.

For many years, Moscow has touted the prospects of a trans-Korean railway, natural gas pipeline and power lines — ambitious projects that would allow Russia to significantly increase its regional clout. No visible progress has been made.

Russia is interested in gaining broader access to North Korea's mineral resources, including rare metals. Pyongyang needs Russia's electricity supplies and wants to attract Russian investment to modernize the obsolescent Soviet-built industrial plants, railways and other infrastructure.