Putin says U.S. guarantees unlikely to prompt North Korea to de-nuclearise

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) presents a sword to Russia's President Vladimir Putin following their talks in Vladivostok, Russia April 25, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said after holding his first face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday that U.S. security guarantees would probably not be enough to persuade Pyongyang to shut its nuclear programme.

Putin and Kim held a day of talks on an island off the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok two months after Kim's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump ended in disagreement, cooling hopes of a breakthrough in the decades-old nuclear row.