By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Despite fanfare about Korea's ``resources diplomacy,'' its success is overrated, experts said Sunday.
During his recent visit to Russia, President Lee Myung-bak agreed on a bilateral strategic cooperative partnership, something quite similar to that forged by Lee's predecessor Roh Moo-hyun in 2004.
A key achievement in the latest partnership is an agreement on a trans-North Korea gas pipeline, in which the Russian side is to send at least 7.5 million tons of natural gas annually for 30 years through a pipeline running from Vladivostok, Russia, to South Korea through North Korea.
If this is translated into reality, it would mean a major breakthrough for fuel-starved Korea. But its feasibility is doubtful, considering an exploration and development agreement for gas in the Russian Far East that folded without serious discussion.
There was an earlier failure in June regarding another project. Then, a Korea-led consortium signed a huge oil contract with Iraq's autonomous Kurdish government, but its perspective is still not clear due to the intervention of the central Baghdad government opposing deals between its autonomous regions and foreign countries. In February, Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdish autonomous government, visited South Korea to sign an MOU.
``The deal was based on the Kurdish law and Korean companies didn't wait for clearance from the central government,'' said Mustafa Alani, senior advisor of the Gulf Research Center, a Dubai-based institute, in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in March. ``It has obviously upset many Iraqi people, and it's likely that the Korean government will have to work carefully on the exploration of oil fields in Iraq.''
The controversy was anticipated in advance. Prime Minister Han Seung-soo was put in charge of President Lee's resource diplomacy but, in April, before his visit to Central Asia, envoys called on the Seoul government to be cautious for the fear that the host countries could be offended by a blitz of such efforts without full prior consultations.
``It's more important to shape up adequate circumstances for that particular diplomatic stance than to shout it out to the world outside,'' Korean ambassador to Kazakhstan Kim Il-soo was quoted as saying. ``When it comes to diplomacy, I don't feel it's proper to openly mention our interest in 'resources diplomacy' to those resource-rich countries.''
Lee's resource diplomacy is understandable because Korea relies on imports for most of its oil and other natural resources. Lee, a former CEO, made it clear that it is a pivotal diplomatic principle since his inauguration in February.
However, the ambitious policy was also marred by a series of gaffes committed during his overseas visits.
In Moscow, Lee was received by an official lower in rank than that called for by the occasion, raising eyebrows of those back home. This prompted the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry to post on Agora, a debate forum of Web portal Daum, a defensive argument saying ``diplomatic protocols are different in different countries, so sometimes it could lead to public misunderstanding.''
In another diplomatic mishap Public Procurement Service Administrator Chang Soo-man visited Russia to sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in public procurement between the two countries, only to be told just 30 minutes before the signing that his Russian counterpart would miss the ceremony due to ``an emergency call from the President Vladimir Putin.''