Russia needs greater role in 6-party talks

By Kim Young-jin

Washington should do more to involve Russia in efforts to curb North Korea’s growing nuclear threat as regional players move closer to resuming stalled negotiations, a U.S. expert said.

Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the effort was needed to counter Pyongyang’s tightening bond with Beijing.

“We need to do a little bit more to bring the Russians in and work with them instead of relying so much on the Chinese, who are, quite frankly, part of the problem,” Cossa, who visited Seoul last week, said in an interview.

His call may soon be answered. On Tuesday, speculation abounded that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev could offer visiting North Korean leader Kim Jong-il lucrative oil and railway projects for resumption of the six-party talks, which last convened in 2008.

Russia joined the six-party talks at the behest of the North and has largely been seen as a minor player.

China has shielded the North from U.N. censure for its two deadly provocations last year and is suspected of turning a blind eye when Pyongyang violates sanctions.

The Obama administration’s special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, should visit Russia when he makes his rounds to discuss the talks, Cossa said.

“When he does his diplomatic rounds to get things started, he goes to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo and then sends his deputy to Moscow. Yet the Russians have as much access to (North Korea). A lot of their old generals in North Korea were trained in the Soviet Union.”

He said Washington and Seoul could even suggest that Moscow host a future round of the talks, though he said such a possibility was slim.

Moscow began taking a harder line on Pyongyang last year, strongly speaking out against its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island and disapproving the disclosure of a uranium enrichment program that provides a track to nuclear weapons.

Don’t start from scratch

A recent flurry of diplomacy prompted by surprise North-South talks in Bali last month has pushed the talks closer to resumption.

But Cossa, who believes they could open as early as January, warned that players should get on the same page so Pyongyang isn’t allowed to renege on previous commitments.

The last round of talks ended in a stalemate in 2008 when Pyongyang failed to agree to verification protocol after extensive negotiations, causing Washington to cut off its incentive shipments of heavy fuel oils.

“It’s a matter of getting what we paid for,” Cossa said, referring to the protocol to verify the North’s declaration of its nuclear program. “That needs to be the first step, not talking about another 100 tons heavy fuel oil.”

Cossa’s view is supported by the growing opinion that the Kim regime will never give up the nuclear program seen as its greatest bargaining chip.

He predicted that Pyongyang would wait to see what happens in the upcoming presidential elections in Seoul and Washington next year before making significant moves, and will try to extract as much as it can in 2012, when it has pledged to become a powerful nation.

Such factors should temper expectations if talks resume, he said.

“Denuclearization is the goal. But I don’t think anyone in the room when the talks resume is going think that will happen as long as Kim Jong-il is alive.”