N. Korea executed 4
defectors sent back from China: activist
June 25
North Korea has publicly
executed four citizens who were recently repatriated from China after being
caught by the Chinese authorities, a North Korean defector in South Korea
claimed Monday. The four were among a
group of 44 North Koreans who fled to China to avoid political oppression and
chronic food shortages in the North, according to Kim Heung-kwang, the head of
NK Intellectuals Solidarity, a Seoul-based defectors' group. Kim said the 40 others were sent to
political prison camps after being repatriated from China.
China views North
Korean defectors as "economic migrants," and not refugees, and
typically sends them back to their communist homeland where they can face harsh
punishment.
The latest claim of the North's public
executions could not be independently verified as the isolated country strictly
restricts outside access.
Seoul marches to save the 33 North Koreans
who fled to China
02/21/2012
by Joseph Yun Li-sun
A demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy
in South Korea calls on Beijing not to repatriate a group of North Korean
refugees who face death if they return home. For the first time, even actors
choose to manifest.
Seoul (AsiaNews) - MPs, students, religious
leaders and for the first time, some actors are marching in Seoul to ask the
Chinese authorities not to repatriate 33 North Koreans fleeing the regime of
Kim Jong-un, and currently held in prison in Changchun. The protest is being
held in front of the Beijing embassy in South Korea: China must decide the
refugees' fate by tomorrow.
Among those asking for clemency for the
group are Cha In-pyo and Lee Seong-mi, both well known South Korean actors.
China has repatriated North Korean
defectors, South Korean official says
March 09, 2012| By Paula Hancocks, CNN
Ignoring international protests, China may
have repatriated around 30 North Korean defectors who had been caught while
trying to escape their homeland, a South Korean official said Friday.
"Captured defectors face a slow
death," he said. "There is a place called 'flower garden' where about
2,000 defectors are buried like dogs. The flowers are so red there because of
their blood."
China Halts Repatriation of N.Korean
Defectors
June 26
Yonhap News Agency.
6/25/12
The latest rhetoric
came after North Korea's flag was fired upon during a South Korea-U.S. joint
live-fire drill near the border with the North on Friday.
"It is an
extremely grave military action and politically-motivated provocation to fire
live bullets and shells at the flag of a sovereign state without a declaration
of war," the North's Foreign Ministry spokesman said in an
English-language statement carried by the country's official Korean Central
News Agency.
Prominent South Korean
Activist to Testify Before UNHCR
June 26,
Oh Kil-nam, a
prominent South Korean activist whose wife and daughters were detained in North
Korea, will testify before the UN High Commissioner for Refugees this week
about the abuse his family suffered, a diplomatic source said.
The Office of the High
Commissioner for Refugees apparently decided to hear Oh’s testimony after the
UNHCR found last month that his wife and daughters were unlawfully detained by
North Korea. It is rare for a member of a family abducted by North Korea to get
a chance to testify before the UNHCR.
Oh and his wife, Shin
Suk-ja were lured to North Korea from Germany in 1985. Oh later escaped alone.
In November last year,
the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea
submitted a petition to the UN seeking the rescue of Shin and her daughters.
Pressed by the UN for a response, North Korea sent a curt letter this month
claiming Shin had died of hepatitis and her daughters disowned Oh.
Scale
of yearly Chinese unconditional aid to N.Korea unveiled
June 24
China
has provided North Korea with 100,000 tons of food, half a million tons of oil,
and goods worth 20 million U.S. dollars as requested by the North yearly,
informed sources in China said Sunday.
This
is regular assistance separate from relief supplies that China sends in
the event of disaster in the North or free aid given when a Chinese leader
visits Pyongyang.
That
China sends regular shipments of free aid to the North is well known, but the
scale and content of the assistance had never been made public before.
That
is, the volume of China`s free aid to the North has been slightly adjusted
yearly, with Beijing providing 90,000 tons of food and half a million tons of oil
last year.
An
informed source on North Korean affairs said, “Regular assistance is pure aid
that doesn`t entail conditions such as long-term loans or barter of goods and
materials.”
This
year, however, the Chinese government shipped through mid-June just 10,000 of
the 100,000 tons of food aid among items of regular assistance given to
Pyongyang. The North depends on China to overcome a significant portion of its
food shortage.
According
to statistical data on Chinese customs clearance obtained by The Dong-A Ilbo, the
volume of food the North purchased significantly increased from 125,000 tons in
2008 to 356,000 tons last year.
“This seems to be China’s act of retaliation
for the North`s test-firing of a long-range missile in mid-April despite
Beijing’s strong demand that Pyongyang reconsider,” one source said.
China
has usually pressured the North through free regular aid and administrative
procedures, including delays in customs clearance in the past. For example,
in the wake of Pyongyang`s second nuclear crisis in 2002, when the North
unveiled its highly enriched uranium program, China shut off its oil
pipeline to the North for three days in 2003 citing facility
repair.
Still
another informed source on the North said, “In late February, North Korea and
China agreed that Beijing would ship 220,000 tons of corn by April 14, the eve
of the Day of the Sun (the birthday of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung), but
the shipment was completed around April 20 due to delays.”
Beijing
pledged its largest package of free aid to Pyongyang in late February after the
former was heartened by the North`s move to return to the six-way nuclear talks
early this year. But the Stalinist state angered China again by announcing that
it would test-fire a long-range missile March 16 and conducting the launch
April 13 despite Beijing’s strong objection.
S. Korean activist
detained in Vietnam for helping N. Korean defectors
HANOI, June 25
(Yonhap) -- A South Korean activist has been detained in Vietnam in connection
with his work related to North Korean defectors, Seoul officials here said
Monday.
The 51-year-old activist, who is only
identified by his surname Yoo, was arrested by Vietnamese authorities last
Wednesday at a hotel in Ho Chi Minh on suspicion of helping North Korean
defectors, according to officials at the South Korean embassy in Hanoi.
Yoo was arrested for allegedly helping
arrange a way for some North Korean defectors to enter South Korea, but it was
not immediately clear what exactly he was accused of doing, officials said.
The South Korean embassy plans to ask the
Vietnamese authorities for permission to interview Yoo on Monday.
Yoo is also believed to have played a role
in helping more than 400 North Korean defectors fly to Seoul from Thailand in
2004.
Southeast Asian nations, such as Thailand,
Vietnam and Laos, have been a preferred transit route for North Korean defectors,
who escape through China with the hope of eventually settling in South Korea,
home to more than 23,000 North Korean defectors.
China to Reconsider
Economic Project on North Korea's Hwanggeumpyeong
Island
June 25
China has told North
Korea that it will reconsider the development project of North Korea's
Hwanggeumpyeong island, which represents the economic cooperation between
the two countries.
Hwanggeumpyeong, an
island located on the border between China and North Korea, was designated as a
special economic zone last June.
North Korea promised
China to provide the island for 50 years, so that China can foster businesses such
as information technology, tourism, light industry and modern agricultural
industry. In return for investments by China's
Liaoning Province and Dandong city, North Korea allowed China to travel through
its Najin port which leads to the East Sea.
However, the Chineses
government told North Korea last month, that it will revise the project from
the square one. According to the
government, Liaoning Province and Dandong City will no longer take part in the
project, and the investment plans will be rebuilt by the central government. In
response, North Korea has done rice planting on the island earlier last
month.
China's recent
decision is mainly attributed to its judgement that Hwanggeumpyeong has
little business value. North Korea's
rocket launch in April despite China's dissuasion, may also have provoked
Chinese government.
With the delay in the
Hwanggeumpyeong project, North Korea's 10-year economic development plan is
likely to be disrupted.
North Korea may also
be criticized for providing its Najin port to China without receiving anything
in return.
Heo Seung-ha, Arirang
News.
Chinese shipper may
have ties to N. Korean arms dealer
By YOSHIHIRO MAKINO/
Staff Writer
A Chinese shipping
company that exported to
North Korea four large vehicles capable of transporting ballistic missiles last
year is suspected of having links to a North Korean arms dealer, sources
in the Japanese government said.
The Dalian Qingsong company, based in Dalian, operated several cargo
vessels with similar features to the transport ship between China and North
Korea, the sources said.
The Chinese shipper
operates the Harmony Wish, a 1,999-ton cargo ship that transported the four
vehicles to North Korea in August, and several other freight vessels that are
similar in size and name.
In addition, the ships
are registered with Cambodia, although the crew of each cargo carrier consisted
of all Chinese except for a couple of Myanmarese crew members.
Each vessel made
around 10 calls a year at ports in North Korea, including Wonsan, Chongjin and
Nampo, over the past five years.
The name of the
Chinese company is very similar to the
Qingsong Group, a North Korean arms dealer, one of the targets
of economic sanctions announced in May by the U.N. Security Council’s North
Korea sanctions committee over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Qingsong Group was
established by 2008 to take over the business of North Korea’s Korea Mining
Development Trading Corp., which deals in weapons and military equipment, after
it was slapped with U.S. sanctions.
Qingsong Group, which
is believed to be under the control of North Korea’s intelligence services, has
branches in Italy, Australia, Malaysia and China.
No details about the
Dalian Qingsong shipping company are available, and it has no website.
China refuses to
accept any on-site inspection by a panel of experts under the U.N. Security
Council sanctions committee.
Romney on North Korea
June 24
By Tong Kim
Despite U.S. concerns
of proliferation and security threats, North Korea is not a critical issue that
will affect the outcome of the American presidential election in November. The
North is not likely to provoke military trouble serious enough to make a difference
during the rest of this presidential election year for either the United States
or South Korea.
Since Pyongyang’s
failed satellite rocket launch in April that effectively cancelled a Feb. 29
agreement with Washington, the North has shown willingness to forego a third
nuclear test and to reengage the United States. From its strategic calculation,
the new North Korean leadership under Kim Jong-un seems to have decided to
avoid further provocations.
However, it is also
unlikely that there would be a breakthrough to the deadlock in inter-Korean
relations or a new development that could help remove distrust and hostility
between the United States and the DPRK, which has reached the worst level in
the 60-year cycle of confrontation and engagement.
The Barack Obama
administration knows that there is no satisfactory settlement of the North
Korean issue achievable before the election. To protect his reelection chances,
Obama would hope that the North does not stir up more trouble. The North
appears to be cooperative for its own interests.
The North Koreans
likely favor the reelection of Obama over the presumptive Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney, despite their disappointment and frustration
with the minimal record of Obama’s North Korea policy.
From Romney’s
statements on North Korea so far and in view of the known perspectives of his
foreign policy team members, it is easy to understand why North Koreans would
favor Obama. A Romney administration would resemble the hawkish George W. Bush
administration preferring to rely on military force to resolve international
disputes rather than diplomacy.
To appeal to voters,
Romney speaks of “another American century,” “an American exception to stay as
the sole superpower to lead,” and “a robust military presence in the Pacific.”
He does not trust the sincerity of the North Koreans at the negotiating table.
He does not talk about engagement or negotiation for non-proliferation but
about implementation of verifiable inspections.
When Kim Jong-il died
six months ago, Romney argued that the United States should push for regime
change on the opportunity of the North Korean leader’s death, calling him “a
tyrant who lived a life of luxury while the North Korean people starved,” and
who developed dangerous weapons. To bring about regime change and to force
North Korea to take a different path, Romney said, “America must show
leadership.” In contrast, the Obama administration has called for stability and
caution during Pyongyang’s transition.
On the launch of the
North Korean rocket, Romney charged that Obama’s “efforts to appease the regime
have emboldened Pyongyang.” He said Obama had “no effective response to North
Korea’s weapons program and Obama supported “a food-aid deal,” ― a
characterization of the Feb. 29 agreement ― “that proved to be as naive as it
was short-lived.”
According to Romney’s
official campaign website, he “will commit to eliminating North Korea’s nuclear
weapons and its nuclear-weapons infrastructure. A key mistake in U.S. policy
toward North Korea has been to grant it a series of carrots in return for only
illusory cooperation. Each step the world has taken toward North Korea has been
met with further provocations and the expansion of its nuclear program.”
“Romney will reverse
that dynamic.” He will make it “unequivocally clear to Pyongyang that continued
advancement of its nuclear program and any aggression will be punished instead
of rewarded.” Romney will “institute harsher sanctions on North Korea, such as
cracking down on financial institutions that service the North Korean regime.”
“He will also step up
the Proliferation Security Initiative to constrain North Korean illicit exports
by increasing the frequency of inspections of North Korean ships and
discouraging foreign ports from permitting entry to North Korean ships.” His
people believe “such measures would shut off routes by which the regime
supplies its nuclear program.”
A Romney
administration would clearly be tougher in rhetoric and attitude, but it does
not offer new ideas that could disarm North Korea. Its policy represents a
rehash of the hardline aspects of what the previous and present administrations
have tried without much success. Romney has yet to offer more specifics on how
he can accomplish denuclearization and secure peace and stability in Korea.
Romney says he “will
work to persuade China to commit to North Korea’s disarmament,” and “assure
China it will not be alone in dealing with the humanitarian and security issues
that will arise should North Korea disintegrate …and when the North Korean regime
collapses…under the weight of its own economic and political contradictions”
The underlying
assumption for this approach is not original. Under Obama’s policy of strategic
patience, Washington and Seoul had erroneously anticipated an imminent fall of
the Pyongyang regime or its surrender to international pressure to accept the
conditions of engagement as dictated by them. The North neither fell nor
surrendered.
Like Obama, Romney
“will also pursue robust military and counter-proliferation cooperation with
our allies and others in the Pacific region.” Similarly, he will also
invigorate relationships with South Korea, Japan, and others to increase a
collective military presence and cooperation,” to deal with the rising power of
China.
The North is unlikely
to collapse in the next five years. And, since neither Obama nor Romney seems
to have any fresh ideas that will resolve the issue, perhaps, a solution should
come from the next government of the South or the new leadership of the North.
What’s your take?
The writer is a
visiting research professor at Korea University and a visiting professor at the
University of North Korean Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at Johns
Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Reach him at
tong.kim8@yahoo.com.
North Korea Tests the Patience of Its Closest Ally
JANE PERLEZ June 24,
BEIJING — As Kim Jong-un, the young leader of North Korea,
consolidates his grip on power, China is showing signs
of increasing frustration at the bellicose behavior of its longtime ally.
Most surprising,
though, is how Mr. Kim has thumbed his nose at China, whose economic largess
keeps the government afloat. For example, shortly after Mr. Kim took over, a
Chinese vice minister of foreign affairs, Fu Ying, visited Pyongyang, North
Korea’s capital, and sternly warned him not to proceed with a ballistic
missile test. The new leader went
ahead anyway.
“We have made this absolutely clear to them;
we are against any provocation,” Cui Tiankai, another Chinese vice minister of
foreign affairs, said in a recent interview when asked about a possible third
nuclear test by North Korea. “We have told them in a very direct way, time and
again, we are against it.”
Asked why China did
not punish North Korea for its actions, Mr. Cui replied: “It’s not a question
of punishment. They are a sovereign state.” China
backed sanctions against North Korea at the United Nations Security Council
after the first two nuclear tests, he said. “If they refuse to listen to us,”
he added, “we can’t force them.”
Mr. Kim’s erratic
behavior unfolded early on. In late February, his government signed an
agreement with the United States to freeze its nuclear weapons and
ballistic missile programs, giving hope that he would turn out to be more open
to change than his father. But six weeks later, Mr. Kim ripped up the accord
and, without informing China, ordered the missile test that Washington
viewed as a test run for launching a nuclear weapon.
The China News
Service, a state-run agency, headlined an article last week: “Smooth
transfer of power six months after Kim Jong-il’s death. North Korea enters era of Kim Jong-un.” The
top North Korean Army generals, some of them in their 80s, have joined ranks
around Mr. Kim, presenting a unified command, said Daniel A. Pinkston of the
International Crisis Group in Seoul, who has written a forthcoming report by
the group on North Korea.
and the new leader has
shown no interest in following the advice of China to open up the economy, even
in a modest way.
Despite Mr. Kim’s
obstinacy, China keeps the economy from collapsing. Right after Mr. Kim
assumed power, for example, China gave North Korea 500,000 tons of food and
250,000 tons of crude oil, according to the International Crisis Group report.
That helped overcome what a German aid official, Wolfgang Jamann, said in
Beijing on Friday was the worst drought in 60 years. His organization, Global Food Aid, has run a food program in
North Korea since 1997.
More than two dozen
Chinese fishermen were held captive for two weeks by North Korea in May. After
their release, one of the fishermen described how his boat was boarded by North
Korean Navy men brandishing guns. After
“13 days in hell,” the fishermen were released, according to interviews in the
Chinese news media. But not before the boats and men were stripped, the men to
their underpants, the fisherman said.
Nonetheless, senior
Chinese officials “dare not use China’s economic leverage” against North Korea,
said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University
in Beijing. That is because a collapse of the North Korean government could
result in a united Korea allied with the United States, which
would be a nightmare scenario for China, Mr. Shi said.
Indeed, as China
becomes more concerned about what it sees as the United States’ stepped-up
containment efforts against China — including the positioning of more
warships in the Pacific — the less inclined it is to help the United States on
North Korea, said Yun Sun, a China analyst in Washington.
“China will not help
the U.S. and South Korea solve the North Korea problem or speed up a
China-unfriendly resolution, since China sees itself as
‘next-on-the-list,’ ” she wrote in an
article last week for the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Hawaii, where Pacific Command, the arm of the American military
overseeing the increased United States naval presence in the Pacific, is
located.
And over all, there
are unyielding historical reasons for China’s protectiveness toward North
Korea, said an experienced American diplomat and expert on China.
“Beijing
disapproves of every aspect of North Korean policy,” J. Stapleton Roy, a
former United States ambassador to China and now vice chairman of Kissinger
Associates, wrote in an article this month, also for the
Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But with long memories
of both the Korean War and how Japan used the peninsula to launch its invasion
and occupation of much of China from 1937 to 1945, “Beijing has an
overriding security interest,” Mr. Roy wrote, “in maintaining influence in
Pyongyang and in not permitting other powers to gain the upper hand there.”
Choe Sang-hun
contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea. Bree Feng contributed research.
FAR EAST FOCUS:
Pyongyang exploits N. Korean loggers in Russia
By YOSHIHIRO MAKINO/
Staff Writer June 25
KHABAROVSK, Russia--A
North Korean defector toiled as a logger for about 10 years in a “labor camp”
of sorts in Russia’s Far Eastern region under a state program to earn
much-needed foreign currency for the repressive nation.
The 49-year-old former
soldier appeared at a small hotel along the Trans-Siberian Railway in late May.
The short man frequently glanced about, visibly nervous about North Korea’s
secret police on the hunt for defectors like him.
North Korea is known
for exploiting workers it sends abroad by taking away their wages and
infringing on their human rights.
More than 100 North
Korean defectors are now in Russia, with about 30 in Moscow, according to the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Each day, the former
logger felled larch and other trees and transported them to stations from 8
a.m. to around 10 p.m. at the No. 13 office in Tygda in the Amur Oblast.
About 700 North
Koreans worked as loggers at the office, with three to four dying in accidents every year.
Loggers made about
$500 (40,000 yen) a month on average and $2,000 to $3,000 in a season,
according to accounts of other former workers. But more than 70 percent of
their pay was siphoned off by the government.
The man remembers he
received a maximum of $160 a month in certificates, but supervisors said half
of the payment had been sent to his family in North Korea. He was never told
how much he made.
North Korean workers
dispatched around the world send home several hundreds of millions of dollars a
year. The workers, along with mineral resources, are a key source of hard
foreign currency for the country, which suffered a trade deficit of $630
million last year.
North Korea’s Forestry
Ministry operated its Russian representative office on the outskirts of Khabarovsk, with
branches in Tygda and Chegdomyn in the Khabarovsk district, its two largest
logging bases.
During the peak, up
to 20,000 North Koreans worked as loggers in Russia, with half of them
based in Tygda and Chegdomyn, according to sources.
The defector said he
volunteered to go to Russia in September 1995 “to make a living.” At that time,
rations were suspended in a food crisis, and people were starving to death in
rural areas.
At the No. 13 office
in Tygda, eight loggers formed a group. Two workers were each responsible for
cutting, selecting, transporting and loading trees onto cargo trains. With equipment in short supply, the monthly
quota of 3,000 cubic meters was seldom met.
North Korea focused on logging in Russia’s Far Eastern
region after it concluded a contract
with the former Soviet Union in
1967. Under the agreement, North Korea would take about 35 percent of
the trees felled.
North Korean workers
are dispatched abroad only for three years. But the man managed to extend his
stay, paying bribes to representatives at the No. 13 office, including those
from the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the State Security Department, or
the secret police.
The man won the trust
of senior officials and started working outside the logging base on a part-time
basis in around 2000. He would earn 2,000 rubles (4,800 yen, or $60) if he
worked at a road construction site for one week.
The man left the
office in January 2005, saying he would be back in a week, but never returned.
According to the defector,
North Korean authorities went all out to control workers' thoughts. In winter 1997, he saw a Russian TV news
program at the office, which was reporting the defection of former ruling party
secretary Hwang Jang Yop. An
enraged senior State Security Department official threatened to send him home
if he watched TV again.
When a fire burned the
portraits of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and its then leader Kim Jong Il
in a lodging for workers, the occupant of the room was sent home the following
day.
The man and four
former loggers he has made friends with are making a living by occasionally
doing farming work for Russians. But the five live separately, for fear of
being rounded up by the secret police.
The man said he cannot
save money to flee to safer parts due to a difficult life.
“I want to go to South
Korea, but I do not have money to travel,” he said. “Only death awaits me if I
return home.”
In December, the man
watched a news report at his home about the death of Kim Jong Il.
“Many people died
because of the dictator,” he said, with a look of despair on his wrinkled face.
North Korea has closed
many logging bases in Russia. Tygda and Chegdomyn have only several hundred
workers between them, according to sources.
But there are still
15,000 to 20,000 North Korean workers in Russia, according to South Korean
human rights groups and other sources.
A little less than
5,000 work in Vladivostok, and plans are under way to have several thousand
North Koreans engage in farming or construction in the Amur Oblast.
North Korea has also
sent workers to other parts of the world. About 19,000 entered China on a work
visa between January and March, a 40-percent increase from the same period the
previous year.
Kim Tae San, a former
employee of North Korea’s Light Industry Ministry, was responsible for running
a joint venture shoe sewing factory in the Czech Republic for three years from
2000.
The 60-year-old said
workers could save only less than 10 percent of what they made because the remainder
was confiscated by the government.
Female workers at the
plant each made $150 a month, but $75 to $80 was unconditionally remitted to
North Korea. In addition, the factory collected $40 for lodging expenses, $1
for subscriptions for airlifted Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North
Korea's ruling party, and $2 for flowers. On a memorial day, a basket of
flowers was presented before the Kim Il Sung statue in Pyongyang on behalf of
all workers overseas.
With whatever money
was left, the workers would eat cheap macaroni seasoned with salt for meals,
according to Kim.
Despite the harsh
conditions, numbers of North Koreans have volunteered to work overseas,
according to sources.
A former logger said
some overseas workers, including loggers, can expect to save $1,000 in three
years if they bribe senior officials and do side jobs.
North Koreans can buy
a home in rural areas with $2,000, according to the source.
North Korean workers,
described as cheap, diligent and free from labor disputes, have contributed to
economic development in Russia’s Far Eastern region.
They are not
necessarily welcome in Russia, however.
North Korea has
effectively exercised extraterritorial rights in logging bases and ignored
Russian requests to improve human rights conditions for workers.
The State Security
Department searches for defectors without consulting Russian authorities.
The secret police
whisk away defectors in public after affixing a board to one of their legs
under their trousers so that they cannot flee, according to sources.
Russia has taken a
conciliatory approach both to Pyongyang and Seoul. It has not aggressively
taken action against defectors, while asking the South Korean government not to
contact defectors directly.
South Korean human
rights groups have called on Russia not to issue work visas for North Korean
workers.
Russia has proposed
three projects--a railway, a natural gas pipeline and a power transmission
network--to Pyongyang and Seoul as a way of cooperation since the breakup of
the Soviet Union.
Oleg Renzin, deputy
director of the Economic Research Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, said North Korea would gain more from a passage
fee for the pipeline, estimated at $100 million a year, than from logging
operations in Russia.
While overseas workers
and mineral resources only bring foreign currency to North Korea, the three
projects would strengthen the country's industrial bases.
North Korea had been
wary because the projects would all pass through its territory on the way to
South Korea. But Pyongyang, suffering from economic difficulties, has dropped
its opposition since last year.
At a summit meeting in
August, North Korea and Russia agreed to cooperate on the pipeline project. In
addition, cargo trains would run between Khasan, a Russian city on the border
with North Korea, and Rajin Port in North Korea from October.
Many North Korean
delegations are also expected to visit Russia’s Far Eastern region, such as the
Khabarovsk district and the Amur Oblast.
However, Renzin said
Russia cannot help economic development in North Korea if inter-Korea relations
remain stalled. It is because Russia relies on South Korea for much of the
funding for development of its Far Eastern region.
“Russia has kept its
distance (from North Korea) in terms of security if it is willing to cooperate
in the economy,” a Japanese observer said, noting that North Korea’s political
situation is unstable following the death of Kim Jong Il and the failed launch
of a long-range ballistic missile.
