The Russian president has arrived Vladimir Putinwho is making his third foreign visit since his re-election in March, to Uzbekistan On Sunday, he met with his counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev before the start of official talks.
Russian news agencies said that Mirziyoyev received Putin upon his arrival in Tashkent in the evening, and the two leaders moved together in one car.
Pictures and video clips published on the Kremlin website and Russian news agencies showed Putin during his visit to the new Uzbekistan Park in Tashkent, where he laid a wreath on a memorial to the independence of Uzbekistan.
News agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling Russian television that Russia is open to broader cooperation on gas supplies with Uzbekistan, saying that “the possibilities here are very broad.” Putin has visited China and Belarus since his re-election by a large margin.
The last time Putin visited Uzbekistan was in September 2022 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, but he met Mirziyoyev in Moscow during Victory Day celebrations in Russia on May 9, according to what Russia Today TV reported.
The Russian President has rarely traveled abroad since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him last March, on suspicion of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin denies these accusations.
Planned visit to North Korea
The Kremlin announced last week that it was preparing a visit by Putin to… north korea Which Western countries accuse of providing Moscow with ammunition for its attack in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian RIA Novosti news agency last Friday, “President Putin received an invitation to an official visit to North Korea. Preparations are being made for this visit. We will announce its dates at the appropriate time.”
The Russian President received the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Russia in September 2023 at a summit at the end of which no agreement was officially signed.
But Western countries, especially the United States, accuse Pyongyang of supplying Russia with weapons and ammunition for its military campaign in Ukraine.
Last January, Putin met with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Moscow, which constituted a new sign of rapprochement between the two countries, which share common borders.
In February, Putin gave the North Korean leader a Russian-made car, according to official media in Pyongyang, which constituted a violation of sanctions including the import of vehicles imposed by the United Nations on Pyongyang in 2017, which Russia also signed.
North Korea’s official news agency reported that Kim “received a car made in Russia for the personal use of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of the Russian Federation.”