MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. Moscow expects the second meeting between the leaders of the United States and North Korea to produce positive results, Russian Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said, commenting on the Hanoi summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
"The second round of talks is very important. We very much hope that there will be positive results. Russia like nobody else is interested in that, because our country is partially situated in this region. We are interested in easing tensions," she pointed out.
The Russian senate speaker added that she considered the meeting to be a positive sign as the first summit had helped reduce tensions.
"I think it is only possible to achieve positive results if there is dialogue and the parties take each other’s opinions into consideration, expressing readiness to meet each other half way," Matviyenko noted.
She emphasized that North Korea had taken serious steps to ease tensions following the first Kim-Trump meeting, dismantling a nuclear test site, suspending nuclear and missile tests and launching talks with South Korea, but "unfortunately, there have been no similar steps on the part of the US."
"If ensuring the complete denuclearization of North Korea remains the only goal of these talks, with no actions taken to lift sanctions, then as a sovereign state, North Korea is unlikely to take further unilateral steps," Matviyenko noted.
Hanoi summit
The second meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is taking place in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi on Wednesday. The two leaders are expected to agree on specific steps aimed at resolving the situation on the Korean Peninsula during their Hanoi meeting.
Trump and Kim held their first historic meeting in Singapore on June 12, 2018. The parties signed a joint document, in which Pyongyang committed to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula in return for US security guarantees.