North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong Il yesterday rumbled across Siberia aboard his armoured train heading for a secrecy-shrouded summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
A Russian official familiar with the planning said the two leaders’ rare meeting would take place in the eastern Siberian city of Ulan-Ude tomorrow.
“The guest is arriving tomorrow,” the regional official, who refused to go on the record because of the sensitivity of the situation, said yesterday.
“Our (leader) will be there Wednesday,” he said.
The talks will take place in the eastern Siberian city of Ulan-Ude near Lake Baikal in the Buddhist region of Buryatia, 5,550 kilometres east of Moscow, he said.
Mr Kim will also be shown around the picturesque shores of Lake Baikal and offered a boat ride, the official said.
He did not provide further details, saying he had given a written pledge not to disclose this information.
Russian news agencies, citing the Russian Defence Ministry, said yesterday a delegation of Russian military officials had arrived in North Korea with an eye to boosting military and naval cooperation.
“The sides will discuss the prospects of cooperation of the two countries’ ground forces, possibilities to conduct joint exercises and drills to search and rescue ships in distress,” the Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Defence Ministry spokesman as saying.
The delegation led by Admiral Konstantin Sidenko, commander of the Eastern Military District, would remain in North Korea until Friday, it said.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency cited a Seoul-based senior government official as saying: “There is a possibility that Kim will arrive in Ulan-Ude on Aug. 23 and hold the summit on Aug. 24 after spending a night.”
In an apparent nod to Mr Kim’s concerns about personal safety, the Kremlin imposed a virtual blanket ban on information about the plans and itinerary of the 69-year-old leader, now rumbling across the Trans-Siberian railway aboard his special train.
The Kremlin said in a terse statement that the summit would be the highlight of the reclusive Mr Kim’s week-long tour of Russia’s Far East and Siberia, his second visit to the giant neighbour since 2002.
Yesterday was the third day of Mr Kim’s week-long trek, a rare trip out of his country battling food shortages and isolation.
“The special train carrying the general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is going along the Trans-Siberian railway in the direction of Ulan-Ude,” the administration of the Buryatia region said.