The United States special representative for North Korea is headed to Moscow amid rumors in South Korean media that Kim Jong Un is planning to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin soon.
Stephen Biegun’s trip appears to be the latest attempt by Washington to jumpstart high-stakes nuclear talks with Pyongyang that have seemingly been stuck in neutral since the abrupt end to a summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Hanoi.
Trump and Kim left the Vietnamese capital without a deal in part due to disagreements over trading sanctions relief for North Korea scaling back its nuclear program.
Russia has previously echoed North Korea’s call for phased sanctions relief in exchange for denuclearization, while Trump has reportedly pushed for a big deal that gets that gets to the heart of North Korea’s nuclear program and goes beyond Pyongyang dismantling one key facility, Yongbyon.
Rumors of a potential Putin-Kim summit also come as new analysis of satellite imagery suggests there may be renewed activity at Yongbyon.
According to CSIS, a US think tank with links to the government and defense industry, new photographs show five specialized rail cars at a part of the Yongbyon facility near an uranium enrichment facility and radiochemistry laboratory, two sites used in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The think tank said it obtained the photos on April 12.
Neither Russia nor North Korea has announced an official meeting between their two leaders, who are not believed to have ever met each other. On Tuesday, South Korean deputy foreign affairs minister Kim In-chul said that Seoul is aware “that the summit between Russia and North Korea is being pushed forward.”
Kim met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last year, days before Kim traveled to Singapore to meet US President Donald Trump. At the time, the top Russian diplomat called for a phased lifting of sanctions in exchange for North Korea’s denuclearization.
The Kremlin would not comment when asked Monday about a potential Putin-Kim meeting, which South Korean media has reported could take place around China’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, which is believed to begin later this month.
North Korean national carrier Air Koryo has scheduled a flight from Pyongyang to the eastern Russian port city of Vladivostok on Thursday, according to Flightaware.com. The airline typically only flies the route on Mondays and Fridays, according to its website.