A top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un embarked on a weeklong trip to Russia on Monday as Kim’s special envoy. Choe Ryong-hae, a senior secretary of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to deliver a letter from Kim.
Choe’s trip, which could be followed by a visit by the young North Korean ruler to Russia, comes as Pyongyang’s maneuvers to improve ties with all other powers in Northeast Asia have hit a wall.
The announcement of his visit, which was made by North Korea’s state media and Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday, came a day after President Park Geun-hye expressed hopes that a trilateral summit could be held with her Chinese and Japanese counterparts. Leaders of South Korea, China and Japan failed to get together for their annual talks that started in 2008 due to Tokyo’s strained ties with Seoul and Beijing over territorial and history-related issues.
The resumption of the three-way summit would increase pressure on Pyongyang to change its course of action and abandon its nuclear weapons programs. A senior aide to Park said Friday the foreign ministers of the three countries were likely to meet in late December to pave the way for a summit between their leaders.
The North has been increasingly frustrated with the strengthening ties between the South and China, with Chinese President Xi Jinping having refused to meet with its young ruler, who took power three years ago. Talks between Pyongyang and Tokyo over bilateral pending issues, including the issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped and taken to the North decades ago, have stalled after making some progress in initial stages. The communist state’s release of two detained American citizens earlier this month resulted in no easing of the U.S. administration’s efforts to thwart its nuclear ambitions and address its dire human rights conditions.
Pyongyang seems to be seeking a breakthrough in these unfavorable diplomatic surroundings by enhancing ties with Moscow. It may be recalled that its late leader Kim Jong-il, father of the isolated regime’s current ruler, sought to strengthen relations with Russia by holding three summits with Putin in the early 2000s and meeting with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev months before his death in December 2011.
For its part, Russia may well hope to raise its presence in Northeast Asia by increasing its leverage over North Korea.
Moscow should make use of Pyongyang’s overtures to play a constructive role in solving the prolonged nuclear standoff with the North, not hampering the process. After all, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula would maximize Russia’s economic and geopolitical interests in Northeast Asia.
In their initial responses to reports of the North Korean special envoy’s visit to Russia, U.S. and Chinese officials seemed to hope Moscow would move in this direction. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said “we closely coordinate with Russia” to deal with the threat posed by the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China supported North Korea’s cooperation and exchanges with other countries.
Seoul officials are also advised not to neglect diplomatic cooperation with Moscow in the course of arranging for a trilateral summit with Beijing and Tokyo.
