NK-Russia summit to focus on energy

By Kim Young-jin

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il arrived Tuesday by train in the eastern Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, where he is expected to hold summit talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today.

Kim was greeted by Russian officials at the town some 3,000 kilometers from Bureiskaya and ushered away by car on the fourth day of his rare trip to the neighboring country.

The secretive leader is widely expected to meet Medvedev and discuss regional denuclearization efforts and energy cooperation.

The visit comes amid renewed efforts to resume the six-way talks on the North’s denuclearization that Moscow is a party to and as Pyongyang seeks international aid to prop up its economy.

Some speculated Medvedev could try to coax Kim to cooperate in the denuclearization-for-aid forum by offering lucrative projects in the energy and transport sectors.

Moscow’s idea of building a pipeline through the Korean Peninsula to sell Siberian natural gas to the South is expected to be high on the agenda. The project could earn Pyongyang hundreds of millions of dollars a year in handling fees.

The Kremilin also wants to link its Trans-Siberian Railway with South Korea through the North, a move that would facilitate shipping between Europe and the South.

The projects could help ease soaring tension on the peninsula, it believes.

Efforts by the Russian president appear to be coordinated with Washington and Seoul. U.S. officials said the Kremlin agrees that Kim must improve ties with the South and take concrete denuclearization steps before talks resume.

Analysts said Moscow was using the opportunity to bolster its role in the region and protect its rapidly expanding economy.

“Russia worries about the recent developments in and around the Korean Peninsula, and would like to play a role of intermediary –– both to calm the uneasy situation down and to increase its own profile,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University.

A recent flurry of diplomacy including bilateral meetings among the North, Washington and Seoul, have nudged denuclearization talks closer to an eventual resumption.

Moscow last year strongly condemned Pyongyang’s disclosure of a uranium enrichment program that provides a second track to nuclear weapons.

Seoul wants Pyongyang to halt all its nuclear activities and allow U.N. inspectors to verify the suspension before resuming the stalled talks, which halted in 2009 after the North stormed away in response to international sanctions.

Observers said Kim could also be angling for aid amid a serious food situation in the North as well as severe flooding.

The Red Cross recently said that over 29,000 people in the impoverished North had lost their homes from storms and flooding in the past three months.

He could request more food aid than the 50,000 tons of grain the Kremlin has offered to help cope, some have speculated.