Kim Jong-un left by train for Russia to meet Vladimir Putin

North Korean adviser Kim Jong-un will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, Russia's Far East district on Thursday, a Kremlin advisor confirmed on Tuesday as North Korea seeks international support in the USA.

"Our president will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Thursday," Yuri Ushakov told reporters, saying the meeting would take place in Vladivostok, before Putin travels to Beijing. another summit.

This meeting, the first between the two leaders, is a "key event in bilateral relations" between the two countries, he added.

Kim Jong-un left Pyongyang "on a private train at dawn on Wednesday to go to Russia", announced the North Korean official agency KCNA, without specifying the final destination.

The Russian news agency Interfax said the train should enter Russia via the border town of Jashan; and according to Ria NovostiRussian train services said the train would arrive at Vladivostok station at 18:00 local time (8:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

The North Korean leader usually travels to his international rendezvous in neighboring countries in a special armored train.

The North Korean official agency KCNA He had previously announced that Kim "will soon visit Russia at the invitation of President Putin".

"The meeting will focus on the politico-diplomatic resolution of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula"Ushakov added that "Russia intends to support all positive trends" in this area.

According to Ushakov, one does not expect a joint declaration or the signing of agreements.

Expectations for this meeting have not stopped growing since the Kremlin announced last week that the two leaders would meet in Russia "in the second half of April".

In Vladivostok, one of the main Russian ports of the Pacific coast, about 200 kilometers from the border with North Korea, Russian and North Korean flags were floating in the streets in anticipation of this summit.

This will be the first summit between the leaders of the two countries since Kim Jong Il, the father of the current North Korean leader, met with the then President and the current Prime Minister, Dmitri Medvedev, eight years ago.

Russia has friendly relations with Pyongyang and provides food aid. Putin has long been declared willing to meet the North Korean leader.

Their meeting comes less than two months after the second summit between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, held in Hanoi and which ended without agreement on the fate of the North Korean nuclear arsenal.

After a year in 2018 marked by a spectacular rapprochement between the two Koreas and a first historic summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, the relaxation seems to have disappeared, especially after the failure of the second summit of Hanoi.

Kim has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping four times in the space of a year, although, according to badysts, he is seeking more and more international support ahead of Washington.

Kim Jong-un also met three times with Moon Jae-in, a South Korean, and once with the President of Vietnam since March 2018.

Moscow advocates a dialogue with Pyongyang based on a roadmap set by China and Russia. Russia has already called for a relaxation of international sanctions against North Korea, while the US accuses Moscow of trying to help Pyongyang evade some of these measures.

Kim Jong-un planned to travel to Moscow in May 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Allied victory in the Second World War, but resigned to do so a few days before the event.