North Korea's Kim greets Russia's Putin at Pyongyang airport

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Putin and Kim met on the runway at the capital's airport before sharing a limousine ride towards the city center with a large police escort. 

As North Korean state media outlet KCNA described it in English, the two leaders were able to share their "pent-up inmost thoughts" during this conversation and agreed to deepen the two countries' relations. 

Though Putin's rarely in North Korea, he entertained Kim as recently as last September at a Russian spaceportImage: Yonhap/picture alliance

Putin's first trip in 24 years

KCNA called the two countries' partnership an "engine for accelerating the building of a new multi-polar world" and said Putin's visit demonstrated the strength of the ties.

Putin also issued a presidential order before departing Moscow declaring his intention to sign a "comprehensive strategic partnership treaty" with North Korea while in Pyongyang.

The leaders were driven off in the same vehicle with a large police escortImage: Yonhap/picture alliance

Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has used improving ties with North Korea as a way to needle Washington, while heavily sanctioned Pyongyang has benefitted from backing the promise of closer ties from Moscow.

The United States and its allies accuse North Korea of providing weaponry for Russia to use in Ukraine in exchange for help from Moscow with its space program — but Russia and North Korea reject charges of sanctions-defying weapons transfers.

Activity likely in Pyongyang on Wednesday

The two leaders left the airport in the Russian Aurus Senat limousine the Kremlin had gifted to North Korea earlier this year.

Russia reverted to the Soviet-era custom of using a homemade presidential limo in 2018 after a couple of decades of using Mercedes. The Aurus name hails from the Au chemical abbreviation for gold combined with RUS for Russia. 

Russia gifted this model of its presidential limousine, the Aurus Senat, to North Korea earlier in the year. It's still fairly new, having been launched in 2018 after the Kremlin decided to make a homegrown model rather than using a Mercedes.Image: Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo/AP/picture alliance

Little was known about the exact schedule for Putin's visit to the secretive and reclusive country. 

However, Russian officials had indicated a likely busy schedule on Wednesday in Pyongyang. Commercial satellite images captured in the build-up to the visit appeared to show possible signs of preparations for some kind of parade.

The visit also comes amid typical tensions between North and South Korea. This was punctuated in recent weeks by the North dropping balloons filled with trash in the South and the South retorting by blaring propaganda through border loudspeakers. It was punctuated on Tuesday by Seoul saying North Korean troops briefly crossed the border.  

NATO's Stoltenberg, in US, says trip shows 'security is not regional' 

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is touring the US amid Putin's trip to North Korea. 

He said at a joint press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday that the news of Putin's trip showed the importance of expanding cooperation between the Western military alliance and partners in the Indo-Pacific. 

"Putin's visit to North Korea demonstrates and confirms the very close alignments between Russia and authoritarian states like North Korea, but also China and Iran," Stoltenberg said. 

"This demonstrates that our security is not regional. It's global. What happens in Europe matters for Asia, and what happens in Asia matters for us," he said. 

Stoltenberg went on to say that the "idea that we can divide security into regional theaters doesn't work anymore," as everything was "intertwined" and needed collective solutions. 

msh/sms (AP, Reuters)