The meeting was held at a closed military base in the Sosnovy Bor village, some 50 km from Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia republic, it said.

The talks are expected to focus on the earliest possible resumption of the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, as well as energy cooperation, including a project to build a gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea via the DPRK.

"High on the talks' agenda are stronger political dialogue, cooperation among relevant ministries and agencies and expansion of humanitarian and inter-regional contacts," a Kremlin source told Itar-Tass.

The Kremlin had said the summit would be the hightlight of Kim's visit, but no specific date, venue nor topic for the talks were mentioned at the time.