Vladimir Putin accepts Kim Jong Un's invitation to visit North Korea

Seoul: Kim Jong Un invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit North Korea, and the offer was "readily accepted", state media in Pyongyang said Friday.

Kim asked Putin to visit North Korea "at a convenient time" during their summit talks in Vladivostok on Thursday, the Korean Central News Agency reported, and "the invitation was readily accepted".

During his talks with Kim on Thursday, Putin positioned himself as a counterweight to the United States, insisting that the North needed "guarantees of its security, the preservation of its sovereignty".

"We need to... return to a state where international law, not the law of the strongest, determines the situation in the world," Putin said.

Kim said he hoped to usher in a "new heyday" in ties between Pyongyang and Moscow.

The pair "were unanimous" that their meeting could help in "strategically controlling the unstable situation of the Korean peninsula in the wake of the second DPRK-US summit talks", it said.