India Intelligence Report

 

 

   Russia Accuses US for NK Tests

  Russia virtually accused the US of pushing North Korea (NK) into a corner and provoked their tests and called for more flexibility from the Bush Administration for the resumption of the 6-party talks.
 

 

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Russia virtually accused the US of pushing North Korea (NK) into a corner and provoked their tests and called for more flexibility from the Bush Administration for the resumption of the 6-party talks. Statements coming right after the exit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from Moscow showed that the US has failed to convince Russian leaders on punishing Pyongyang for the tests. Instead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that trying to punish NK will push “More and more countries” to look “for ways to ensure their security in a situation when the use of force is a growing factor in international relations.”

Seen as a pointed indictment of US unilateralism in Iraq , Lavrov added that “All sides must show realism and depart from extreme, uncompromising positions.” Although Rice had met President Vladimir Putin and Defense and Foreign Ministers, there were no customary statements or joint press conference at the end of the visit. Russia says that “It is impossible to handle the problem of non-proliferation without responding” to a concern of nations about being a target of “use of force.”

Russia also holds the US for not fulfilling the disastrous Agreed Framework Accord of 1994 that former US President Bill Clinton brokered through another President Jimmy Carter. Russian analysts seem to say, and their Government seem to agree, that the failure of the US to uphold this agreement and its bellicose statements warning NK about tests pushed them to test their plutonium device.

Head of the influential Centre for Korean Studies at Russia 's Institute of the Far East Alexander Zhebin was quoted by newswires accusing the US of never intending to “honor the Afreed Framework and did not fulfill any of its provisions.” He went further saying that the US was now abrogating its responsibility by placing “a bursting boiler at Russia’s doorstep” and “sit back and watch it explode on TV” and “let Russians, Chinese and Koreans sort out the consequences.”

Piggy-backing on such indictment, an editorial from the ruling Workers Party publication NK seemed to reverse earlier reports that the communist regime was willing to compromise over the nuclear issue. Spurred by Chinese State Councilor and Special Envoy Tang Jiaxuan who congratulated his embassy to Pyongyang for not having gone “in vain,” those reports said that NK will not test another atom bomb and that the NK leader Kim Jong-Il was apologetic for the October 9 tests. This editorial surmised that “to yield to the imperialists and opt for compromising with them would lead the people to ruin” and accused the US ’s imperialist “aggression and war moves” were the "biggest stumbling block to peace” in the Korean Peninsula . It warned that US that the NK will hand out “"merciless punishment” to the US if it tried invade the North.

Stretched across two different wars of attrition, the US is in no position to invade NK and has said so publicly. Also, with Iran threatening to go down the same path, the US cannot afford to expose itself so much. It is encouraging Japan to take a more proactive and military action but the Japanese Constitution that the US authored would not allow that nation’s military to be deployed outside its borders.