Col. Stanislav Lunev
Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2001

The North Korean leader, who is never known to have taken an airplane, is riding the Trans-Siberian railway to the Russian capital, where he reportedly expects to arrive Saturday or Sunday for talks with Putin.

Kim's visit has been shrouded in secrecy, and Kremlin authorities didn't officially announce he was coming until just minutes before his train crossed border between the two countries.

According to Kremlin officials, Russian and North Korean leaders will discuss the situation between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war under a 1953 armed truce still in effect, as well as industrial cooperation, railway modernization and the construction of a gas pipeline from Russia to North Korea.

Kremlin officials especially emphasized the fact that Russia will not demand that North Korean leader stop work on his country's ballistic missile program.

However, as Russian state-run national TV reported on July 27, the major topic of negotiations between Moscow and Pyongyang will be in connection with military cooperation between two countries. Background preparation for this cooperation was made when a high-level North Korean military delegation visited Moscow last spring.

This delegation was headed by Kim Il-Chol, vice chairman of the North Korea's National Defense Commission and the Minister of the People's Armed Forces, and included Pak Kil-Yong, vice-minister of foreign affairs, among other officials. As the Russian press reported, the North Koreans had talks with their Russian defense counterpart aimed at winning a new deal for weapons assistance for Pyongyang.

On April 27, Kim signed a new military cooperation agreement with Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, but it remains unclear whether a specific arms trade or supply agreement was signed. Currently, more than half of the North Korean air force - most of it supplied by former Soviet Union - is in urgent need of updates and repairs, while its ground forces need massive supplies of new tanks and other weapons.

According to tradition, Moscow and Pyongyang keep secret any military cooperation between two countries, including Russia's participation in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, the creation of an air defense system for Pyongyang by deploying Russia's modern air and missile defense complexes S-300, and its last modification S-400 around North Korea's capital, among other weapons.

Russia's deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who signed the deal for Moscow last April, told the Russian media that he did not expect the arms agreement to harm Kremlin relations with South Korea. However, the "framework agreement on cooperation in the defense industry and military equipment" could become a part of Moscow's broader strategy of regaining markets it once dominated but had to abandon after the 1991 collapse of former Soviet Union.

Russia's state-run press highly praised Putin's cooperation with the North Korean dictator and underscored the fact that last year Putin became the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit Pyongyang and "disclosed" the high-human qualities of the North Korean dictator, his level of education and humor. However, the same media doesn't explain the reason for cancellation of Kim's visit to Moscow last September and several delays for his re-scheduled visits to Russia during both this and last year.

As NewsMax.com reported on May 2, the changes in the time of the visit's arose because of the unpredictable behavior of Pyongyang's dictator, who at the time of his first meeting with Russian President Putin in May 2000, promised to drop his country's missile program if the Western nations will assist North Korea to launch a few space satellites a year at their expense.

Mr. Kim also promised his strong support to Russian and Chinese opposition to U.S. plans to build a nuclear missile defense system (NMD), which was originated as a defense against possible missile attack from North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and other such rogue nations.

In an attempt to make political capital out of Kim's promise to drop his missile program, Putin promoted the North Korean dictator's pledge very actively in his meeting with Western leaders until Mr. Kim made an official statement that his promise was nothing more than a "joke".

It would be very difficult to call this statement a "joke" as well as to characterize the North Korean dictator as a predictable politician, and President Bush was absolutely right when he recently questioned North Korea's reliability in any negotiations.

The dictator's regime has to be treated accordingly, and it could be absolutely unrealistic to believe in the so-called peaceful intentions of Pyongyang's leaders, as well as those of their dear friends such as allegedly "democratic" Russia and totalitarian Communist China.

Actually, there is some common ground between unpredictable Mr. Kim and his Russian counterpart President Putin who last week signed an agreement with President Bush over the 1972 ABM Treaty's negotiations linked to the reduction of nuclear arsenals of both countries.

But on July 27, the Kremlin said in a statement that President Putin had "underlined the immutable nature of Russia's principled position on ABM" treaty in a telephone conversations with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Isn't that a reiteration of North Korean dictator's "joke"?

There is no doubt, that the new summit between Russian and North Korean leaders will not bring real peace and cooperation to the Korean peninsula, or will not stabilize the strategic situation in the Western Pacific. However, the Moscow summit could be a big step toward creation of the coalition of rogue nations built on the basis of the Russian-Chinese axis, which according to officials from Moscow and Beijing "is open" for any country whose leaders oppose the alleged U.S. world "domination".

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