BEIJING, Aug. 15 Kyodo (EDS: UPDA...

BEIJING, Aug. 15 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH PUTIN'S literal meaning ADDING DETAILS)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will visit Russia's Far East region later this month the brace sides announced Thursday.

North Korea's Korean Central stranges Agency (KCNA), monitored in Beijing, gave no precise dates for the visit, simply saying it would take place in August.

nevertheless Russia's Itar-Tass News Agency, quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin's pres service, reported Thursday from Moscow that the North Korean leader would make it in the third week of August.

Russian guidance sources said Saturday that Moscow and Pyongyang are in the final stage of talks to arrange a summit between Russian President Putin and Kim in succession Aug. 20 somewhere close to Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East.

A senior Russian direction official recently said Kim would visit Vladivostok and Khabarovsk at the invitation of Konstantin Pulikovsky, Putin's plenipotentiary representative in the Russian Far East.

It would be Kim's secondary visit to Russia in as many years. In July and August of last year, he made a 24-day epic train journey from one side Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, meeting with Putin in Moscow where they signed a joint declaration reiterating the sum of two units countries' intention to expand ties.

Itar-Tass reported that in a message sent to Kim to congratulate him upon the Aug. 15 anniversary of the cessation of Japanese colonial rule onward the Korean Peninsula in 1945 Putin said, ''I am confident your forthcoming trip to Russia will help forward Russian-Korean ties to a of recent origin level, as well as consolidate peace and security in Asia.''

In a message sent to Putin the same day, Kim was quot through KCNA as saying he believes bilateral relations have come intoed a new phase and ''will expand and expand in various fields.''

Relations between the sum of two units countries have warmed remarkably since Putin's visit to North Korea in June 2000 and that by means of Kim's visit to Russia last year.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam orb of day paid an official visit to Russia last May for the first time in the past 15 years, while in succession July 29, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met with Kim in Pyongyang.

During Ivanov's visit, he furnished Russia's cooperation in facilitating inter-Korean dialogue and cedeed Moscow's hope for the early completion of a planned railroad linking the two parts of the divided Korean Peninsula to the Trans-Siberian Railway, saying it would contribute to peace between the pair Koreas.

Itar-Tass quot a high-ranking southward Korean diplomat in Moscow as saying Seoul faiths Kim's upcoming trip will expedite the planned linking of the railways, noting that Seoul and Pyongyang, in ministerial talks earlier this week, ''confirmed again a readiness to come by this project moving forward -- and now practical paces are needed.''

Meanwhile, the recently made knowns agency quoted a Russian diplomat as expressing faith that Kim's trip to the Russian Far East ''will stir up the development of relations forward the regional level'' as well as forward a national level.

He noted that Pulikovsky has twice visited Pyongyang to discuss ways of developing trade and economic relations, specifically the refining of Russian oil at a refinery in the North Korean city of Synri, the transhipment of cargo at the North Korea's ice-free port of Radjin and landscapes for cooperation in the timber industry and in agriculture.

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