Putin calls Kim Jong Un ‘competent and mature’ leader

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin says North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has shown himself to be a mature leader who is interested in calming down the tensions over its nuclear and long-range missile programs.

Meeting with top Russian media figures on Thursday, 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 Putin’s view, Kim is “cleaning up the situation, smoothing it, calming it.’’