Kim-Medvedev summit likely to be delayed to Wednesday

(ATTN: ADDS South Korean official's comment, Russian newspaper's reports in paras 7-10; RECASTS first three paras; AMENDS dateline) KHABAROVSK, Russia/SEOUL, Aug. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's summit talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will likely take place on Wednesday, instead of the widely expected Tuesday, due to possible schedule changes by Kim, officials from Russia and South Korea said Monday. Kim's rare trip to Russia, the first since 2002, is apparently aimed at drumming up support for his isolated government and moribund economy. The planned talks with Medvedev are expected to focus on the North's nuclear weapons program and cooperation on the energy and transport sectors. On Monday, the third day of his Russian trip, an armored train believed to carry Kim was heading to the eastern Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, where the two leaders are expected to meet. On Sunday, Kim paid a visit to the Bureiskaya hydroelectric plant in the Amur region. Ulan-Ude, near Lake Baikal, is about 3,000 kilometers away from Bureiskaya. "On his way to Ulan-Ude, Kim is likely to stop off at the city of Skovorodino," the intelligence official said on the condition of anonymity. "If so, the North Korea-Russia summit, originally scheduled for Aug. 23, will be delayed by one day." Skovorodino is the starting point for an oil pipeline between eastern Siberia and China. Russia and China completed a 1,000-km oil pipeline linking Skovorodino to Daqing in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang last year. In Seoul, a senior government official also said, "There is a possibility that Kim will arrive in Ulan-Ude on Aug. 23 and hold the summit on Aug. 24 after spending a night." Newspapers in Russia carried similar reports, citing their diplomatic sources. The Izvestiya newspaper reported the Kim-Medvedev talks would be held on Wednesday and the venue for the summit would be a state guesthouse in Ulan-Ude, not a military compound. Tight security measures were in force ahead of his arrival at the city's railway station and near the state guesthouse, the Russian daily reported. For years, Russia has proposed building a pipeline through the divided Korean Peninsula to sell Siberian natural gas to South Korea, one of the world's largest buyers of natural gas. If realized, the project could help ease tensions on the peninsula and bring much-needed hard currency to North Korea. North Korea can expect to earn more than US$500 million a year in handling charges over the gas pipeline, according to South Korean analysts. South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said this month that North Korea reacted "positively" to the natural-gas pipeline construction project. The North's reaction was conveyed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Kim during their bilateral talks on Aug. 8. Moscow has also floated the idea of connecting its Trans-Siberian Railway with South Korea via North Korea, a proposal that would provide cheaper shipping routes for South Korean companies selling goods to Europe. Russia is one of the six nations involved in the long-stalled six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs. The North quit the disarmament-for-aid talks in 2008, but it has expressed interest in rejoining the talks that also involve the two Koreas, the United States, China and Japan. Last month, North Korea and the United States held rare high-level meetings in New York on how to resume the six-nation nuclear talks.