The World Media Summit is underway in the Russian capital. Organised at the initiative of ITAR-TASS news agency, it brought together media executives from over a hundred countries. Top media figures discuss the challenges media face in 21 century and work out common ways to tackle them. On the sidelines of the summit, ITAR-TASS managed to catch up with Kim Pyong Ho, the president of the Korean Central News Agency, and asked him whether anything changes in North Korea, known as a very closed country for the media as the new president takes office, and what is the role Russia is playing in the world.

What's, from your point of view, the main goal of the summits like this? What being a part of it means for you, your agency and North Korea?

- We participate in the second World Media Summit. Of course, there are a lot of aims, but first of all it is to fulfill our role as the media, show change of environment in the field of mass media, to play the role of mass media in the present situation.

As the new president took office in North Korea, will it become more open for the foreign media?

- Well, in the past actually mass media was not blocked. In reality, there were few relationship with mass media. Our new Leader wants to build many relations and now we are making progress in this field, they are developing rapidly.

How can you characterize relationship between Russia and North Korea?

- I agree that Russia is geographically in the middle between the east and the west. So i can say that Russia indeed plays the role of a bridge. And i also agree with what a famous Russian man said: "Russia is a world", and i agree with that. We have traditionally good relationship with Russia, and the new president Kim Jong-un sees friendship with Russia as valuable.

Today we spoke to the head of South Korean news agency and he told us he was willing to meet his North Korean counterpart. Do you want to meet him?

- I've already met with him, the president of Yonhap news agency. I think in the future we'll have relations with Yonhap News, in the future, but now I think it's difficult to develop relations between two news agencies. I think so.