Kim Jong-un meets Vladimir Putin for first time at Vladivostok summit

Russian president offers North Korean leader help to break nuclear deadlock after Kim’s failed summit with Donald Trump

Vladimir Putin has offered Russia’s help to break the deadlock over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme in his first meeting with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

Putin and Kim greeted each other warmly on Thursday, shaking hands before beginning two days of highly anticipated talks at a university in Russia’s far-eastern city of Vladivostok.

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Kim Jong-un arrives in Vladivostok by train for Putin summit

North Korean leader’s entourage ensures dust-free welcome in Russia’s far east

As Kim Jong-un arrived at the Vladivostok railway station on Wednesday, white-gloved attendants ran alongside his armoured train, wiping the dust from any surfaces that the North Korean leader might touch exiting the carriage.

Before he could disembark, the train had to back up precisely so that the carriage doors lined up with the red carpet laid out for Kim’s arrival.

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Kim Jong-un to visit Russia to meet Putin for first time

Summit between North Korean leader and Russian president to take place in late April

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, will visit Russia in late April for his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, Moscow has said.

“Following an invitation from Vladimir Putin ... Kim Jong-un will visit Russia in the second half of April,” said the Kremlin in a statement on its website on Thursday.

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Kim Jong-un oversees first weapons test since failed US-North Korea summit

Regime’s leader says test of tactical guided weapon would increase the ‘combat power’ of the country

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the testing of a new type of tactical guided weapon on Wednesday, state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Thursday.

It is North Korea’s first public weapons test since the second US-North Korea summit in Hanoi ended with no agreement in February.

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North Korea nuclear site shows signs of activity

Satellite pictures show railcars at Yongbyon site, raising concern radioactive material is being transported

Week-old satellite images show movement at North Korea’s main nuclear site that could be associated with the reprocessing of radioactive material into bomb fuel, a US thinktank has reported.

Any new reprocessing activity would underscore the failure of a second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi in late February to make progress toward North Korea’s denuclearisation.

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Kim Jong-un sets conditions after Trump suggests third summit

  • US needs to ‘stop its current way of calculation’
  • Trump repeats demand to relinquish nuclear weapons

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is interested in meeting Donald Trump again only if the US comes to talks with the right attitude, state media said on Saturday, after the US president floated the idea.

Related: The art of the no deal: how Trump and Kim misread each other | Julian Borger

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Donald Trump floats idea of third North Korea summit despite failed Hanoi talks

US president said he ‘enjoys the summits’ with chairman Kim Jong-un and is hopeful for progress on sanctions and human rights

Donald Trump has said he is considering a potential third nuclear summit with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.

“We will be discussing that and potential meetings, further meetings with North Korea and Kim Jong-un,” Trump said in the Oval Office at the start of talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

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UN calls for food aid for starving North Koreans despite sanctions

Exclusive: western donors urged to ‘put children before politics’ in face of food shortfall

The head of the UN World Food Programme has called for the White House and other western donors to put children’s lives before politics and fund a major injection of aid to North Korea despite the failure of Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un.

David Beasley, a former Republican governor of South Carolina who backed Trump’s campaign for the US presidency, said he had heard concerns that responding to an appeal from Pyongyang would prop up the Kim regime.

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‘Grave terrorist attack’: North Korea condemns raid on its Madrid embassy

In first official comment on February incident, Pyongyang suggests Washington’s possible involvement

North Korea on Sunday described the February raid on its embassy in Madrid by a dissident group as a “grave terrorist attack” and urged an investigation into the perpetrators.

A group of armed men burst into Pyongyang’s Spanish embassy last month and roughed up employees before fleeing with documents and computers.

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Secretive group seeking to oust Kim Jong-un claim North Korea embassy raid

Cheollima Civil Defence says it carried out daring raid on Madrid building in February

A secretive dissident group seeking to overthrow the regime in North Korea has claimed responsibility for last month’s raid on the country’s embassy in Madrid, as a court in Spain prepared to seek the intruders’ extradition.

Cheollima Civil Defence said in statement posted on its website that the 22 February raid on the embassy was “not an attack” and claimed that its members had been responding to an “urgent situation” inside the embassy. The intruders fled with computers, hard disks and other items after a failed attempt to persuade an embassy official to defect.

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Spanish court: FBI was offered stolen data by North Korean embassy intruder

One of 10 people who entered consulate by force in February contacted FBI, high court says

The details of how mysterious intruders raided North Korea’s embassy in Madrid last month, tricked the Spanish police and made off with a stash of stolen intelligence which they offered to the FBI have been laid out by a Spanish judge.

Spanish police were called to the embassy in the middle of the raid, but were warded off by the Mexican citizen Adrian Hong Chang who pretended to be a diplomat, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.

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Trump to lift ‘not necessary’ North Korea sanctions, White House confirms

  • US had blacklisted Chinese shipping companies on Thursday
  • ‘Trump likes Kim and doesn’t think these are necessary’

Donald Trump has announced that he is ordering the withdrawal of recently announced North Korea-related sanctions imposed by the US treasury department.

Related: North Korea warns US sanctions could derail plans to denuclearise

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Kim Jong-nam murder: suspect Siti Aisyah released after charge dropped

Indonesian woman had been accused of killing estranged brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Malaysia in 2017

The case against Siti Aisyah, one of two women who were charged with the murder of the estranged brother of Kim Jong-un, has been dropped by a court in Malaysia.

She was released from custody after the decision in Kuala Lumpur on Monday morning.

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North Koreans go to polls in ‘rubber-stamp’ election

There is one candidate on each ballot for vote held every five years for Supreme People’s Assembly

North Koreans have voted in an election in which there can be only one winner.

Leader Kim Jong-un’s Workers’ party has an iron grip on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea but every five years it holds an election for the rubber-stamp legislature, known as the Supreme People’s Assembly.

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North Korea must give up all nuclear weapons before any sanctions relief, says US

US position hardens after Hanoi summit collapse, warning that any launches at missile sites would violate Kim Jong-un’s promise

The US is demanding North Korea destroys all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons before receiving any sanctions relief, as positions harden on both sides in the aftermath of last week’s failed Hanoi summit.

The US clarified its demands after satellite images showed the North Koreans had completely rebuilt a space launch site they had partially dismantled after the first summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in June last year.

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North Korean film on Kim and Trump glosses over summit’s failure

Documentary about last week’s Hanoi meeting offers benign portrayal of US president

It fell short of Donald Trump’s claim that he and Kim Jong-un had “fallen in love”, but a new North Korean documentary suggests the leaders’ relationship is strong enough to survive last week’s doomed summit in Vietnam.

In keeping with the rest of the regime’s post-talks coverage, the film makes no mention of the summit’s premature end, the countries’ irreconcilable differences over sanctions or their conflicting accounts of why the US president and the North Korean leader parted without an agreement.

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Trump ‘very disappointed’ if North Korea rebuilding rocket site

US president claims it is too early to tell if Kim Jong-un is reconstructing Sohae facility

Donald Trump has said he will be “very disappointed” in the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, if reports about a rocket launch site being rebuilt prove to be true.

Two US thinktanks and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency have reported that work was under way to restore part of the Sohae satellite launching station even as Trump met Kim in Hanoi last week for their second summit.

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