Alexander Vorontsov, head of the Department for Korean and Mongolian Studies and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russia Academy of Sciences, offers Moscow’s perspective on its “hopes” for the current North Korean situation.

In Russia, we are convinced that the plans to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs by squeezing it with sanctions, pressure, and increased isolation are ill-founded and simply will not work. It is when North Korean leaders are feeling increased military and other threats from outside that they speed up the strengthening of their “nuclear shield.” They are also prepared to sacrifice much for its sake, including limiting their own economic freedom and reforms (in the North Korean understanding of those concepts, of course).

We have concluded that the only real, workable method to first halt, then gradually limit, and in the long run eliminate North Korea’s nuclear capability, is for the main players to enter into substantive negotiations on the issues as soon as possible. And while closely monitoring Pyongyang’s fulfillment of its obligations, we should not fail to meet our own.

The Six Party Talks mechanism in Beijing is a perfectly workable tool that has provided a store of useful experience. Therefore, it would be extremely desirable to restart the talks as soon as possible. However, it should also be noted that it would be imprudent to exclude other international institutions to deal with similar problems in the future.

As a final conclusion, it is worth recalling a truth that is well known in the nonproliferation community: work on nonproliferation and regime change policies are absolutely incompatible. Anywhere attempts at regime change begin, successful nonproliferation efforts come to an immediate halt.

In sum, Russia, like the other members of the Six Party Talks, is truly interested in the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. It is also very much alarmed by the continuing unmonitored development of North Korea’s nuclear programs in recent years.

Recently, Moscow achieved an important success in addressing to Pyongyang the international community’s concerns. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin visited Pyongyang on March 11-14, 2011 and directly called on North Korea to come back into Six Party Talks without preconditions, to declare moratoria on new nuclear and long range missile tests, to include the uranium enrichment issue on the Six Party Talks agenda, and to provide IAEA inspectors access to the nuclear facilities, including those working on uranium enrichment.

The most significant outcome of this visit was that the DPRK leadership accepted Russia’s proposal, agreeing to return to the Six Party Talks and include its uranium enrichment program on the agenda. They indicated as well, a readiness to consider all other issues in the course of negotiations on the principle of “action for action.”[4] Thus Pyongyang via Moscow sent a clear signal to the international community that it is ready to demonstrate a much more flexible and constructive approach to engaging in substantive dialogue.

This is a testament to our hope that the Korean peninsula’s “pendulum swing” is now moving back toward negotiation.

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Filed under: Korea, Russia, WMD Tagged: kim jong il, north korea, nuclear proliferation, six party talks