understood to be pressuring the regime by limiting exports and assistance, but the apparently unpredictable young leader in Pyongyang seems to have little concern for his only ally.
Meanwhile, Kim is seeking alternative allies. Although Russia too is concerned over North Korea’s nuclear programme, both countries have taken first but evident steps towards an improvement of both countries’ relations since the Ukraine crisis.
For Russia, North Korea is a convenient ally, and for North Korea, which needs all the support it can get, it’s a lucky turn of events: Besides more frequent high-level visits, Russia cancelled most of North Korea’s $11 billion debt last year.
Earlier this year, India too was signalling a wish to enhance relations with North Korea. In April, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong went on a three-day trip to India marking the first high-level visit since 2009 and the first visit of a North Korean foreign minister in 25 years.
Whether this visit will really help in warming relations between North Korea and India – despite North Korea’s well-established relations with Pakistan – remains to be seen. Nonetheless, North Korea‘s objective seems to be obvious: It no longer wants to solely depend on China.
However, China needs North Korea‘s dependency in order to keep the nuclear-armed bully of Northeast Asia in line. With alternative partners emerging, young Kim feels further encouraged to ignore China’s concerns. He even declined the invitation to attend the Victory Day military parade in Beijing last month.
At the beginning of October, China announced it would send a leading member of the Communist Party‘s Politburo Standing Committee (Liu Yunshan) to Pyongyang this month for commemorative celebrations of the founding of North Korea’s ruling party.
Beijing is trying to keep the ties with Pyongyang alive, but it seems doubtful that these efforts will be sufficient to reach any consensus with North Korea on the matter of the Six-Party Talks.
It would be desirable to achieve a similar agreement with North Korea as the E3+3, (France, Germany, and the UK, plus: Russia, the US and China) managed to negotiate with Iran recently.
However, just like negotiations with Iran over time developed from an E3 to an E3+3 format, it might be time to re-think the Six-Party Talks framework, as well, in order to break the long-enduring deadlock with North Korea.
A new or adjusted format – a Six-Party Talks 2.0- - could be re-launched involving more parties with strengthened efforts from other countries, which could play a mediating role.
The EU is one major actor possibly able to play a role here, not least because Europeans too have high stakes in Northeast Asia. China, Japan and South Korea are the most important trading and investment partners of the EU in Asia.
Given the uncertainty that even China is faced with in Pyongyang, no time should be wasted in addressing the dangers of North Korea’s nuclear programme development; and the EU could be among those addressing it with more efficiency than was possible in the past.
This article originally appeared as: ‘China urges a reboot of Six Party Talks’.
Courtesy: Aljazeera.com