504O. Davydov (4545233@mail.ru),
Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO), Profsoyuznaya Str., Moscow 117997, Russian Federation
Abstract. The author examines the situation involving the North Korean nuclear and missile issue. It is argued that the crisis on the Korean Peninsula has been aggravated in the past years due to persistent striving of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to drastically increase its potential of mass destruction weapons and the means of their delivery. During a quarter of century, neighboring and most concerned countries have made numerous attempts to involve North Korea into negotiations in order to resolve the problem by peaceful means, but those efforts brought no positive results. The situation even deteriorated after the new dictator – Kim Chong Un – came to power in 2011. In the past four to five years, Pyongyang has removed all previous self-restrictions to initiate at full power a large-scale program of the nuclear and missile weapons development. The complication is that the DPRK is not willing to advance any reasonable ideas on how to find a way out of the present deadlock and categorically rejects any proposals regarding aimed at unilateral denuclearization of the country. Although the military challenge coming from North Korean experiments seems to be exaggerated by the American side, the major danger stems from their negative impact on non-proliferation regime. Quite clear that the DPRK demonstrates very bad example for some developing countries, which possess excessive military or political ambitions. În July 4, 2017, Russia and China, who attentively watch the developments, put forward a set of proposals regarding an incremental resolution plan for the Korean issues, beginning from moratorium on nuclear tests and simultaneous freeze on South Korean and American joint military exercises. However, those proposals did not find support on the part of the USA and its Asian allies. In this regard it should be mentioned that at the moment, one of the main obstacles is the lack of coordination and trust between the five powers most interested in the Korean settlement – Russia, China, the USA, the Republic of Korea and Japan. All this necessitates the launch of a regular multilateral consultative mechanism in order to strengthen control over the dynamics of the situation and accelerate the search of constructive ideas aimed at the achievement of comprehensive nuclear problem resolution.
Keywords: nuclear and missile issue, the Korean Peninsula, denuclearization, dialogue, peaceful resolution, non-proliferation regime, conflict
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