The meeting between Russia and North Korea

The meeting between Putin and Kim Jong-un represents an evolution of the North Korean question. For Seoul, after the meetings with the USA, it means breaking the isolation with which North Korea had characterized its foreign policy, so much to deserve the nickname of a hermit nation. China, therefore, no longer represents the only diplomatic interlocutor, although it remains the privileged one. For Russia the meaning is to enter the question of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, taking advantage of the space left by the failed attempts of the United States. Even for Moscow there is an interest in eliminating the nuclear danger so close to its territory, but even more, there is the intention to play a leading role in the matter, an alternative and competitive role with the USA. It must be specified that if the American attempt to reach an agreement with North Korea was not entirely acceptable to Beijing, China towards Russia has a more positive attitude, because it does not consider Moscow a threat to Washington's level in the geopolitical order of the Korean peninsula; indeed, a still divided Korea would also be an advantage for Russia, as well as for China, because a single nation on the Korean peninsula would fall within the area of ​​American influence. Obviously for Beijing it would be impossible to tolerate the US presence on its borders, but also for Russia, a few kilometers away from North Korea, it would be to have dangerously close Americans. It is thus understood that China and Russia have common interests in relation to North Korea: both have a vested interest that the state of Pyongyang continues to exist. Certainly the best question to have relations with North Koreans is that of the denuclearization of the country and through this motivation to find a field of dialogue, which can go beyond the specific question. One of Kim Jong-Un's main fears is to fear for his own safety and to have the assurances of remaining in power, arguments that Trump had assured, but which had not been sufficient to reach an agreement. Putin enters into dialogue with the North Korean dictator starting from the nuclear issue, knowing full well that it will remain a topic without a solution, because it is the only means of pressure available to Pyongyang; but the Russian president was at the game of Kim Jong-Un to achieve the result of restoring the Kremlin diplomacy, penalized after the invasion of Crimea, to world importance. Russia could intercede in the Security Council of the United Nations, supported by China, for a reduction of sanctions towards Pyongyang, a solution which is also favorable to Seoul, which always hopes for a detente towards North Korea, which could open a phase of greater stability on the Korean peninsula. From an economic point of view, Russia has offered grain supplies to the North Korean country, the construction of a methane pipeline and a railway, which would target South Korea, which needs alternative routes to the sea for its products; however, these infrastructures could also be an impetus for the North Korean economy, starting from tolls to cross its territory, estimated at around two hundred million dollars a year. According to Russian diplomats, the North Korean nuclear issue is still open because the American presidents who tried to manage it, both Obama and Trump, were not up to the task; this judgment is understandable because it wants to diminish US diplomacy, however it does not seem possible that even the Russian one can resolve the situation: the bilateral meeting and the eventual vertices that will come, are functional to both sides to obtain great advantages of image with little effort and without any official commitment and can lead to some economic advantage, above all for the disastrous North Korean economy, but they cannot cancel the North Korean atomic weapon because, as already said, it represents the only political weapon capable of bringing Pyongyang to the center of attention international, with all the advantages that follow. Moreover, as long as China has an interest in the reunification of the peninsula, the situation will remain almost the same.