President Vladimir Putin praised North Korean leader Mr Kim Jong-il yesterday as an absolutely modern man "who shows great understanding of world affairs".
Mr Putin met the reclusive Mr Kim on Wednesday in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, allowing the world a rare glimpse of him. He secured a promise from him to abandon North Korea's rocket programme in exchange for foreign space technology, an offer described by the Moscow press as a "diplomatic coup" in advance of the G8 summit in Japan.
The North Korean leader's contacts with foreign dignitaries have been limited to a visit to China earlier this year and a summit in Pyongyang last month with the South Korean president.
"The leader of the DPRK is an absolutely modern man, objectively assessing the world situation," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Mr Putin as saying on a stopover in Blagoveshchensk, in Russia's far east bordering China.
"He was well informed, he had a good reaction to the talks . . . discussion was possible on any subject," he said.
The two pressed their opposition to Washington's anti-missile defence plans in a statement yesterday saying US concerns about a possible threat from Pyongyang were "groundless".
Both men championed sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right to act outside international bodies in a thinly veiled reference to Western criticism of Russia's military campaign in Chechnya and of North Korea's human rights record.
Mr Putin, cheered by thousands when he left Pyongyang, invited Mr Kim to visit Moscow.
Mr Putin scored a "major breakthrough" in his visit to North Korea, especially in securing the conditional pledge from Pyongyang to halt its missile development programme, the press said yesterday.
The timing of the diplomatic coup, ahead of a G8 Summit of the world's leading industrial democracies on the Japanese island of Okinawa, will boost Mr Putin's status on the world stage, Russian newspapers commented.
China yesterday hailed Mr Putin's visit to North Korea and warned that Russia and China would continue to maintain joint opposition to America's proposed National Missile Defence (NMD) project.