Nuke talks, energy to top Medvedev, Kim summit

North Koreas leader Kim Jong-Il meets Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Siberia this week for rare talks expected to focus on energy cooperation, Pyongyangs nuclear program and hunger in the isolated Communist state. The Kremlin said the summit will be the highlight of the reclusive Kims week-long tour of Russias Far East and Siberia, his second visit to the giant neighbor since 2002.In an apparent nod to Kims 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 travelling across the Trans-Siberian railway aboard his special armored train.Medvedev and Kim are widely expected to meet in the eastern Siberian city of Ulan Ude near Lake Baikal in the Buddhist region of Buryatia, 5,550 kilometres (3,450 miles) east of Moscow, possibly today or tomorrow. The summit is bound to go down in history as a major milestone in ties and provides a chance for Moscow to burnish its credentials as a negotiator capable of dealing with so-called pariah regimes.The talks however will hardly bring any foreign policy breakthroughs or firm economic deals, analysts said. The main result of the visit is the very fact of the visit, Konstantin Asmolov, a Korea specialist at the Moscow-based Institute of the Far East said.Everything that Russia and North Korea can discuss now either will fail to break the impasse or concerns various long-term projects, he said. Kim is expected to seek Moscows help in trying to start up stalled talks on North Koreas nuclear disarmament amid signs the isolated state is seeking to reach out to the world as it battles food shortages.Pyongyang stormed out of the six-party negotiations-grouping the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia-in April 2009 and conducted its second nuclear test a month later, but has expressed a desire to return to the forum.Asmolov said the two leaders were unlikely to reach any breakthrough in the nuclear talks where much depends on the position of Washington and Seoul, long irritated by Pyongyangs erratic behavior.The Kremlin, which says that any opportunity must be seized to engage North Korea in dialogue, is also expected to discuss energy and infrastructure projects involving both Koreas.They include a long-stalled plan for a trans-Korean railroad, the construction of an electricity transmission line between the two countries and, most importantly, a pipeline carrying Russian gas to South Korea via the North.Following talks with his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-Hwan earlier this month, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian gas giant Gazprom was in concrete talks with the energy companies of both Koreas. If experts at the corporate level come to an agreement, then political support will be secured in all the three capitals, Lavrov said at the time.