The Symbiosis of Peace and Non-Proliferation in the Korean Peninsula
It was the most miraculous Christmas truce since the First World War. After a year in which the prospect of conflict on the Korean peninsula never appeared greater, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea offered an unexpected olive branch to the Republic of Korea. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un hinted at rapprochement in
his New Year address
; eight days later,
his envoy met with interlocutors
from South Korean President Moon...
There are many obstacles for the meeting, and we have to wait for what the DPRK will say and how the US will behave before and in course of the negotiations
Chung Eui-yong, Head of the National Security Office under the president of South Korea, said, while speaking to reporters in Washington, that president Trump had expressed ...
US Antipathy to Inter-Korean Rapprochement and Russia’s Role in Conflict Prevention
Thanks to the “New Year’s” initiatives of Kim Jong-un – to which South Korean Moon Jae-in responded for his own reasons – significant progress was made in the inter-Korean dialogue at the highest level during the recent Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang (the possibility of an inter-Korean summit is even on the table), although the main achievements thus far have been in terms of good PR rather than concrete agreements...
Kim Jong-un played a brilliant diplomatic gambit, breaking out of a seemingly hopeless dead-end
2018 started with a sensation in Asia – a “New Year’s gift,” if we are to use the words of Ri Son-Gwon, head of North Korea’s delegation at the inter-Korean talks held on January 9, 2018 in the South Korean segment of the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom.
In his traditional New Year’s speech, supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un proposed that an inter-Korean dialogue be launched. The proposal was...
Nuclear deterrence is the only reason why the world did not plunge into a nuclear conflict during the Cold War and is not sliding down that path now as we are living through a new Cold War which is even worse than the previous one. This view was stated at the Valdai Club by Sergei Karaganov, Dean of the School of World Economics and International Affairs at the National Research University—Higher School of Economics.
Nuclear deterrence is the only reason why the world did not plunge into a nuclear...
The Dialogue with the North Korean Leadership Now Has to be Conducted from a Position of Weakness, Rather than one of Strength
The crisis unfolding before our very eyes with regard to North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs did not appear today, or even yesterday. Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions did not come out of nowhere. They are natural, and in a sense logical, reaction of the North Korean leadership to the deepening economic and technological gap between the two Koreas. It was some...
On October 30 the Swedish Ambassador’s Residence hosted a meeting for Andrey Kortunov, RIAC Director General, and Georgy Toloraya, RIAC expert and Executive Director of National Committee for BRICS Studies, with Kent Härstedt, a famous Swedish politician and a diplomat, Special Representative of Sweden on the issue of the situation on the Korean peninsula.
On October 30 the Swedish Ambassador’s Residence hosted a meeting for Andrey Kortunov, RIAC Director General, and Georgy Toloraya, RIAC expert...
“The Kremlin really believes the North Korean leadership should get additional assurances and confidence that the United States is not in the regime change business,” Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Reuters.
“The Kremlin really believes the North Korean leadership should get additional assurances and confidence that the United States is not in the regime change business,” Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian...
... against the Chinese state as such, Beijing was very critical against the US actions. Another round of escalation of the Korean issue could well lead to further attempts by the Americans to press Beijing. The goal is to adjust its policy towards the DPRK, to force China to abandon North Korea's support or to increase pressure on it. Therefore, the new Chinese companies and citizens may be added to the blacklist. And Russians may be there along with them.
How likely is the escalation of US sanctions?...
... emphasise that allied relations between separate states should not inflict damage on the interests of third parties. They are against any military presence of extra-regional forces in Northeast Asia and its build-up under the pretext of counteracting the DPRK’s missile and nuclear programmes.”
In effect, Russia and China explicitly called on Washington to leave Northeast Asia. One could argue that these extremely stern words offered by the two foreign ministries are just diplomatic phrases, which ...
