Moscow, Aug 15 The chief of Russia's parliamentary lower house met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Russian media report said Friday.
The meeting between Kim and Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, took place the previous day during his visit to Pyongyang for the 80th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation, TASS reported, citing a Russian parliamentary news release, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"Volodin congratulated the North Korean leadership and people on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japanese colonial rule on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin at a solemn meeting on the occasion of the public holiday," TASS said.
Volodin also expressed gratitude to Kim for the support the North Korea people provided fighting on the Kursk frontline region in the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the report.
The Russian lawmaker is visiting North Korea from Thursday to Friday with a parliamentary delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule, which falls on Friday.
On Thursday, he also met with Choe Ryong-hae, chairman of the North's parliamentary standing committee, and discussed interparliamentary interaction between the countries, TASS said.
Earlier this week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has expressed his "full support" for Russia during his phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pyongyang's state media reported Wednesday, ahead of an upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and Putin in Alaska.
Kim and Putin held phone talks the previous day, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, marking the first time that the North has reported on its leader's phone conversation with a foreign leader.
The phone talks came as Putin and Trump are set to hold a summit in Alaska on Friday to discuss efforts to halt Moscow's war with Ukraine.
Kim "expressed firm conviction that the DPRK would always remain faithful to the spirit of the DPRK-Russia treaty and fully support all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future," the KCNA said, referring to a mutual defence treaty signed between the two nations in June last year.
DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's full name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
On North Korea's troop deployment for Russia's war with Ukraine, Putin highly appreciated the "bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People's Army in liberating Kursk, a part of Russian territory," according to the KCNA.
Russia's TASS news agency earlier reported that Putin briefed Kim on his upcoming meeting with Trump during their phone talks. But the KCNA did not report on such details.
The KCNA said Putin congratulated North Korea on its upcoming 80th anniversary of liberation on August 15, which marks Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.
It added that Kim and Putin reaffirmed their will to strengthen cooperation and agreed to "make closer contact in the future."
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