Putin scores neat diplomatic coup
By Francoise Michel
MOSCOW (AFP): Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored a neat diplomatic coup by securing a pledge from North Korea to halt its missile program but it is almost certainly an empty promise, analysts said Thursday.
Just over a week since Putin unveiled a new foreign policy doctrine aimed at challenging U.S. world dominance and increasing Russian influence in Asia, his landmark visit to the reclusive Stalinist state earned Moscow a rare political victory against Washington.
"Vladimir Putin brings North Korea into the world community," the Vremya MN daily trumpeted in a headline.
The timing, ahead of a G8 Summit of the world's leading industrial democracies on the Japanese island of Okinawa, will boost Putin's stature on the world stage, Russian newspapers said.
Western commentators agreed.
"Putin is helping the North Koreans to basically get one over the Americans. It gives Putin a chance to tell the G8 look, here I am trying to make peace on the Korean peninsula," commented Mark Galeotti, a expert on Russian affairs from Britain's Keele University.
But he, alongside other analysts, said the North Korean offer to freeze its missile program in exchange for access to foreign space rocket technology could not be taken seriously.
Putin said that Pyongyang expected Russia and other nations to provide rocket boosters for peaceful space exploration in return for abandoning its own missile program.
Yet this seems an improbable offer from the impoverished state, which has poured huge financial resources into its weapons program, according to observers.
"The experience of relations with North Korean leaders has shown it is risky to take such declarations at face value," remarked Alexander Golts, a defense expert from Russia's Itogi weekly.
"It is highly unlikely that the North Koreans will give up their missile program unless they have substantial guarantees and they will want to be bribed to do it. They will want American money to do it," said Paul Beaver from the respected Jane's defense publishers in London.
"I can't see that they would be genuinely prepared to wind up such a significant program without very good reasons," agreed Galeotti.
Attempts by U.S. negotiators to obtain a commitment from North Korea to halt exports of weapons technology in Kuala Lumpur last week ended in stalemate.
North Korea's negotiating team demanded $1 billion in compensation for agreeing to the request. The U.S. team rejected the demand out of hand.
And the United States reacted with skepticism to Pyongyang's latest pledge.
U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said "concrete action" was needed to prove that North Korea was serious about ceasing missile production.
But despite this, Russia is still likely to use Pyongyang's promise in its campaign to mobilize international opposition to the United States' missile shield defense system.
Washington has cited the threat of a possible missile attack from a "rogue state" such as North Korea as a key reason for the development of the system, the National Missile Defense (NMD) shield.
"The worst scenario will be avoided if the Americans are deprived of their main argument: the existence of a North Korean threat," Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily commented.