Kim Jong Un a competent and mature leader, says Russia’s Vladimir Putin

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has shown himself to be a mature leader who is interested in calming down the tensions over the country’s nuclear and long-range missile programmes.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has shown himself to be a mature leader who is interested in calming down the tensions over the country’s nuclear and long-range missile programmes.

Meeting with top Russian media figures, Mr Putin said Kim "is an absolutely competent and already mature politician" who has "solved his strategic task - he has a nuclear warhead and a global-range missile".

Now, in Mr Putin’s view, Kim is "cleaning up the situation, smoothing it, calming it".

Kim and US president Donald Trump have engaged in an increasingly sharp war of words as North Korea’s weapons programmes advance, each of them belittling the other.

- PA