Russia is key to North Korea’s plight

The sharp rise of oil and gas prices has enabled Moscow to utilize its mammoth energy reserves to achieve domestic and foreign policy goals. The new Russian “power politics” have already been tested on the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine and recently the Czech Republic. Russia’s Far Eastern frontier is now turning into the place where energy export becomes a political tool in shaping the country’s relations with regional neighbors.

China, the two Koreas and Japan are hungry for energy, natural resources and, at the same time, strive for economic and political cooperation. In such circumstances, the opportunities offered by trans-national railroads and pipelines appear to be more powerful than weapons. Given this new leverage and understanding, can Russia exert its soft and hard power on North Korea in promoting the goals set in the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program?


The second phase of North Korea’s denuclearization process is officially completed. Under the deal with China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States, in June this year Pyongyang filed its nuclear activity declaration and even blew up a cooling tower of its defunct nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. For its part, the US has officially pledged to remove the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and lifted the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act. All five members of the six-party talks are now expected to deliver to North Korea almost a million tons of heavy fuel oil as compensation for lost energy production.

The general expectation is that these actions will solve the North Korean nuclear dilemma by providing North Korea with the energy it is going to miss. Nevertheless, the third stage of North Korea’s denuclearization does not seem to be off to a smooth start. The DPRK Foreign Ministry complains that it has disabled 80% of its main nuclear complex, but has received only 40% of the promised energy shipments. Pyongyang now threatens it will only move onto the next phase of the denuclearization process – to abandon and dismantle its nuclear weapons programs – only when it has been awarded all the energy aid and political benefits promised under the deal.

Asia Times