INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
President Vladimir Putin had said direct talks were the right way to engage with North Korea.Moscow: The
Kremlin on Wednesday said it welcomed the unprecedented meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the
"Just the fact that such a meeting took place and direct first-hand dialogue was started can only be welcomed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov told journalists.The Kremlin said the meeting "proved correct the Russian side and President Vladimir Putin, who said there is no
alternative to political and diplomatic methods to resolve the problem on the Korean peninsula and the only way is direct dialogue, which we
are seeing now."Such meetings, whatever their results, "help reduce tensions on the peninsula and move the situation away from that critical
point where it was literally a few months ago," Peskov said."This can only be a cause of satisfaction."But the actual results of Kim and
Trump's meeting remain to be seen, Peskov said, adding that such ingrained problems could not be resolved immediately.Russia maintains
fairly close ties with North Korea, with which it shares a short land border.Moscow praised a summit between the leaders of the two Koreas
at the border in April as a positive step.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is
published from a syndicated feed.)