April 05, 2019

North Korean Dictator Seeks Russian Strongman for Support, Friendship

Featuring: Andrea Kendall-Taylor, and ​Neil Bhatiya

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Journalist: Andrew Jeong

With little progress to show from two nuclear summits with the U.S., North Korea is turning to an old friend—Moscow—as leader Kim Jong Un tries to chart a course toward winning relief from sanctions and economic isolation.

Preparations are under way for Mr. Kim’s first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin’s spokesman said in early March, adding that the date and location are being worked out. South Korean intelligence officials said last week that Mr. Kim’s chief of staff—who traveled to Singapore and Hanoi ahead of Mr. Kim’s talks there with President Trump—went to Moscow in March, a sign that the Russian capital could be the venue.

A summit would allow Mr. Kim to solicit support from a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, which oversees sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear-weapons development. It would give Mr. Kim a platform to enlist Mr. Putin’s help for unwinding those restrictions, and to forge a diplomatic Plan B should relations with his main partner, China, falter.

Read the full article and more in The Wall Street Journal.

Authors

  • Andrea Kendall-Taylor

    Senior Fellow and Director, Transatlantic Security Program

    Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS. She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Eur...

  • ​Neil Bhatiya

    Former Adjunct Fellow, Energy, Economics, and Security Program

    Neil Bhatiya is a former Adjunct Fellow with the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security....