... agreement on “friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance.”
The USSR was instrumental in the development of the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program in the 1970s
. Then-leader of the DPRK Kim Il Sung visited the USSR twice – in 1984 and 1986 – to sign additional treaties on cooperation and trade. The Soviet ... ... partner with a
trade turnover
of $2.2 billion.
The break-up of the USSR changed attitudes vis-a-vis Pyongyang in Moscow. The new Russian leadership had been re-examining the country’s international strategic priorities, and the DPRK file was placed on a ...
..., etc.). Voluntary or even forced “disarmament” of an established nuclear state has never been done. The renunciation of nuclear weapons by former Soviet states (Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus) can hardly be seen as a precedent for North Korea: in ... ... the state of North Korea as a whole. Such scenario, however, does not sit with North Korea’s neighbours, namely China and Russia, but also South Korea. We are not just talking about abstract humanism here; the manifold consequences of the North Korea ...
... to safeguard itself against its external enemies and preserve sovereignty is to have nuclear weapons.
Alexey Arbatov:
U.S. Nuclear Warheads' Scary Modernization
The U.S... ... the alliance between Washington and Seoul to become a thing of the past.
What about Russia then? It appears that Moscow will side with China in this game. An important... ... 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...
