Kim Jong Il's Russia Visit Attracts Great Attention

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 26, 2002

Kim Jong Il's Russia Visit Attracts Great Attention

The top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Il, wound up his five-day visit to the Far-Eastern region of Russia and went back to the DPRK on August 24.

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The top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Il, wound up his five-day visit to the Far-Eastern region of Russia and went back to the DPRK on August 24.

There are two reasons why the visit attracts wide attention: Firstly, each of Kim Jong II's visits is a major action in Korea's diplomacy. Secondly, Russia does not cease developing cooperative relations with Pyongyang simply because the United States brands the DPRK as part of the "axis of evil", this again shows Russia's independence in diplomatic ties and provides a new visual angle for the world people to examine the development trends of Russia-US relations after the "9.11" incident.

Along with improvement in their political relations, economic and trade cooperation between Russia and Korea has been resumed in recent years, but generally, it is not very satisfying.

In the year 2001, the two countries' trade volume was US$115 million, with the increase rate standing at only 10 percent.

Enhancing economic ties with Russia and thereby solving Korea's domestic urgent energy and other economic problems is a main objective of Kim's visit to Russia, it is also the reason why the visit is arranged mainly in Russia's Far-Eastern region.

In Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Vladivostok, Kim visited many factrories and commercial facilities and investigated into local social and economic conditions. Public opinion holds that Kim did so in order to remove obstacles to Korean-Russian economic cooperation, grasp first-hand materials, and learn from Russia its development experience.

Russia also shows great interest in developing mutually beneficial cooperation with Korea. It hopes to increase cooperation with the DPRK in the labor market apart from cooperation in metallurgy, fishery and other traditional fields.

Putin and Kim discussed in detail a project to link the Inter-Korean and Trans-Siberian railways. The project would open a new Eurasian freight route via Russia.

A unified railway network will not only bring an annual foreign exchange income of US$500 million, but will inject fresh vigor into economic development in Russia's Far-Eastern region. More importantly, this project will deepen Moscow's ties with Pyongyang and Seoul and enhance its influence on the situation in the entire peninsula.

However, building this unified railway network not only depends on the reconciliation process of the two sides of the entire Korean Peninsula, but also needs a huge amount of investment running to US$3 billion. Objectively speaking, there are still insurmountable political and economic obstacles at least at the present moment.

Although Kim's visit to the Far East is an informal one, Russia attaches great importance to it. President Putin paid a special tour to Vladivostok to have talks with Kim. It seems hard to understand this diplomatic posture of Moscow merely from the angle of economic cooperation.

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Source said that after Kim's three-week long visit to Russia last summer, Moscow and Pyongyang had seen "substantive progress" in their relations. The Kremlin hopes to keep this momentum and proceeds to expand its influence on the affairs of the Korean Peninsula.

Putin expressed again on August 23 that Russia will pay attention to the relations between the DPRK and the ROK, and it will do its bit to promoting the two sides' reconciliation and realizing normalization of the Peninsular situation.

Kim also gave positive appraisal of Russia's efforts.

What is worth noticing is that cooperation between Russia and the DPRK has already made the US uneasy. New York Times reports said during Kim Jong II's visit, Washington ascertained that the DPRK had transferred missile technology to the Yemen and so decided to impose sanctions against it.

The US State Department spokesperson expressed the hope that Russia would show "worry" about some of Korea's acts.. Russia's media Independence said in response that if Russia caters to America's "axis of evil" theory without regard to its own interests, then Russia's diplomacy would be put in a passive position. The Putin-Kim meeting has not only consolidated bilateral relations, but is also conducive to Korean Peninsula's political stability.

By PD Online Staff Li Yan

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