The Latest: Putin says North Korea needs guarantees

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The Latest on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s at an investment forum (all times local):

6:35 p.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says solid security guarantees need to be given to North Korea to persuade it to denuclearize.

Speaking at an investment forum in St. Petersburg alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin said Moscow and Beijing both want Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

But he noted that North Korea has “an example of Iraq and Libya before its eyes and it doesn’t want to repeat their fates.”

Pyongyang, he added, would need serious guarantees.

Putin said he discussed the issue with Xi Thursday and had earlier talked about North Korea with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he visited Russia last month.

The Russian leader voiced hope that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could continue negotiations.

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5:40 p.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is open for talks with Ukraine’s newly-elected president.

Asked Friday why he didn’t congratulate comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy on taking the office of Ukrainian president last month, Putin pointed at Zelenskiy’s statements in which he called Russia an aggressor.

Relations between the two countries have been strained ever since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

Putin said that Zelenskiy is a talented actor, but noted that “there is a difference between playing and being.”

He softened the statement by adding that Zelenskiy may have the makings of a leader and said that he is open for a meeting with Ukraine’s new leader

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3:45 p.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the United States for using pressure and sanctions to maintain its economic supremacy, hurting international trade and eroding global stability.

Speaking Friday at an investment forum in St. Petersburg, the Russian leader said the U.S. has turned its currency into an “instrument of pressure,” undermining trust in the U.S. dollar and damaging its own interests.

Putin said the U.S. attempt to “spread its jurisdiction to the entire world” challenges the global order.

Flanked by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the forum’s panel, Putin said that the U.S. action against Chinese telecom giant Huawei represented an attempt to “blatantly squeeze it out of the global market,” marking “the first technological war of the digital era.”

The Associated Press

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