DATE=02/04/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=RUSSIA / KOREA (L)

NUMBER=2-272160

BYLINE=BILL GASPERINI

DATELINE=MOSCOW

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: South Korea's main news agency reports that North Korean leader Kim Chong-Il will travel to Russia in April for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The meeting apparently marks another step in Mr. Kim's effort to gradually open his country up to the outside world. Bill Gasperini has more from Moscow.

TEXT: Reports about the meeting come several days after Russian and North Korean diplomats met in Moscow to arrange for a summit between the two leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, last July, at which time he invited Kim Chong-Il to visit Moscow.

The trip will be Mr. Kim's first to Russia since he took over from his late father more than five-years ago.

The meeting also marks another step in Mr. Kim's policy of slowly opening up to the outside world.

Mr. Kim also hosted former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on a landmark visit to Pyongyang, and has established diplomatic relations with various Western countries.

The meeting between the Russian and North Korean leaders also marks another step in Mr. Kim's policy of slowly opening up to the outside world.

Last June Kim Chong-Il met with South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung in Pyongyang, the first meeting between leaders of the two Koreas since the war in the early 1950s.

Ties between Russia and North Korea were generally good during the Soviet period. Mr. Kim's father visited Russia in 1986.

But relations cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Moscow sought to improve relations with South Korea. Former President Boris Yeltsin saw that it was to Russia's benefit to increase trade and commerce with the much more prosperous south.

Burt during the past year President Putin has tried to reach out to old Soviet allies, including North Korea.

The two leaders are expected to focus on trade relations as well as the situation on the Korean peninsula. (SIGNED)

NEB/BG/ALW/RAE