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Showing posts with the label Russia- North Korea

Friends with Benefits: Russia and North Korea's Twisted Tango ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Doug Bandow)

Image credits- Reuters Source- The National Interest Author- Doug Bandow Russia and North Korea make up the latest international odd couple. President Vladimir Putin has recently reached out to one of the poorest and least predictable states on earth. So far, the new Moscow-Pyongyang axis matters little. But Russia has demonstrated that it can make Washington pay for confronting Moscow over Ukraine. It may try to leverage its influence in North Korea to make things harder for the United States. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) exists only because of Russia’s predecessor state. The United States and the Soviet Union divided the Korean peninsula, which had been a Japanese colony, after Tokyo’s surrender in World War II. Moscow set up the DPRK in its zone of control. In 1950, Joseph Stalin approved Kim Il-sung’s plan for a military offensive to conquer the southern half of the peninsula, where the Republic of Korea (ROK) had been established. As t

Putin looks east to bolster ties with North Korea ( Copy Right@ Associated Press/ Yahoo News)

Vladimir Putin ( Image courtesy-Wikimedia Commons/Kremlin) Angry with the West’s response over Ukraine and eager to diversify its options, Russia is moving rapidly to bolster ties with North Korea in a diplomatic nose-thumbing that could complicate the US-led effort to squeeze Pyongyang into giving up its nuclear weapons programme. Russia’s proactive strategy in Asia, which also involves cozying up to China and has been dubbed “Putin’s Pivot,” began years ago as Moscow’s answer to Washington’s much-touted alliance-building and rebalancing of its military forces in the Pacific. But it has gained a new sense of urgency since Ukraine – and Pyongyang is already getting a big windfall. Moscow’s overtures to North Korea reflect both a defensive distancing from the EU and Washington because of their sanctions over Ukraine and a broader, long-term effort by Russia to strengthen its hand in Asia by building political alliances, expanding energy exports and developing Russian re