Speaking from the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin conceded that the North Korean nuclear situation is “very serious,” but added, “One must not lose his cool, but rather act in a pragmatic and delicate manner.”
Putin made these remarks after meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the more liberal and dovish successor to impeached President Park Geun-hye. Moon ran on a platform of reducing tensions with North Korea by restoring diplomatic and economic ties with the Kim regime, but since taking office his stance has toughened considerably.
Moon did say he remains in favor of dialogue with North Korea at the G20 meeting, but he also described last week’s test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile as a “nuclear provocation.” He expressed hopes that the Russians would be able to help ease tensions on the peninsula.
In other meetings at the G20 summit, Moon “stressed a need to increase sanctions and pressure on North Korea following its latest missile test,” as the Korea Herald reports. The overall tone of his summit talks was that North Korea must be pressured back to the bargaining table.
Moon said he was willing to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un “at any time, at any place” to work things out, and rather wistfully hoped North Korea and South Korea could reunite as East and West Germany did.
“To Korea, which is the last divided nation on this planet, the experience of Germany’s unification gives hope for unification, and at the same time shows us the path that we need to follow,” he said from Berlin during his trip to Germany.
As for Putin, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping continue to talk semi-tough about North Korea but block effective action, as when Russia torpedoed last week’s U.N. Security Council resolution against Pyongyang on the flimsy pretext that the Russians are not certain what kind of missile the North Koreans illegally launched.
The hot discussion among analysts is whether Russia and China will work together to loosen sanctions against North Korea, even as the provocations from Pyongyang mount. China and Russia are acting more as if they are preparing to welcome Kim Jong-un to the nuclear missile club than contemplating last-ditch measures to make him abandon his ambitions.
At best, Putin and Xi are driving up the price for America purchasing their cooperation to rein in North Korea. That might be why the Trump administration, through U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, has been working hard to send the opposite message that Beijing and Moscow will pay a high price in many other areas, such as trade agreements, unless they get with the program on Pyongyang.
One of Haley’s recurring points is that North Korea’s actions are “quickly closing off the possibility of a diplomatic solution.” That casts Putin’s talk of “cool heads” and “pragmatic and delicate action” in a very duplicitous light. The Russian president is effectively telling everyone to chill out while North Korea puts the finishing touches on its nuclear ICBMs.
The past three decades have produced very little evidence that the Kim regime can be talked out of nuclear weapons, and it no longer offers much of a pretense that it can be bought off—a racket that put a great deal of money in the regime’s coffers throughout the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, while its nuclear and missile programs moved relentlessly forward.
Even President Moon seems to have quickly realized that North Korea must be forced to stop, and only then can meaningful diplomatic engagement resume. If Russia and China intend to sabotage both U.N. resolutions and sanctions, they will be undermining the only “pragmatic and delicate” instruments the free world has left. Putin is telling everyone to stay cool even as he throws a monkey wrench into the air conditioner.