Russian ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky arrived in Stalinist North Korea early Monday on a visit unthinkable just three years ago.
Zhirinovsky, heading a delegation of his Liberal Democratic Party, was met at Pyongyang airport by Hwang Jang-yop, secretary of the central committee of the ruling Korean Workers' Party, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.KCNA did not say who Zhirinovsky was to meet in North Korea, without a formally installed head of state or party chief since the death of "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung in July.
Kim's son and designated heir, Kim Jong-il, has not yet been confirmed in the top leadership posts although his succession appears inevitable.
Zhirinovsky, an outrageous but charismatic figure derided by his foes as a clown-fascist, would have been far from welcome in Pyongyang during the Soviet era when Moscow's Communist leaders were, with the Chinese, the North's chief ideological, diplomatic and economic props.
Since the 1991 fall of Soviet communism, however, the Kremlin has all but severed links with North Korea while Pyongyang media have been scathing in their criticizm of the Russian government under Boris Yeltsin.
So too has Zhirinovsky, a fierce advocate of a "Greater Russia," whose denunciations of post-Soviet Kremlin policies won him stunning electoral success in December 1993 general elections.