Russia offered North Korea powerplants in exchange for nuclear weapons.

Russia reportedly made a secret offer to North Korea last year to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for a nuclear power plant.

According to the Washington Post, the deal was proposed last autumn as a potential solution to an on going diplomatic impasse between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile arsenal.

It has been viewed as a power play by Moscow to elevate its role in the regional peace negotiations about the Korean peninsula, but the chances of success for such a strategy have been met with scepticism by international policy analysts.

The paper reported that under the proposed arrangement the Russian government would operate the power plant and transfer all by products back to Russia, with the aim of providing North Korea with a much-needed energy source while denying it the chance to use the plant to make weapons.

Intelligence officials reportedly became aware of the Russian move in 2018, but it is not known how the US administration responded or whether the offer is still on the table.

The US state department, White House, CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Russian Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the report. 

“The Russians are very opportunistic when it comes to North Korea, and this is not the first time they’ve pursued an energy stake in Korea,” said Victor Cha, a former White House official who was last year considered as the nominee for US ambassador to South Korea.
“Previous administrations have not welcomed these Russian overtures, but with Trump, you never know because he doesn’t adhere to traditional thinking,” Mr Cha told the Post.
Russia appears keen for Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, to pay a visit to Moscow, but he has so far not committed to doing so.


“Of course, it is on the agenda,” Igor Morgulov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, told the local media on Monday, but he did not lay out any concrete dates, reported TASS.
Kim, who travelled to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, in early January now appears to be focusing his diplomatic efforts on a second summit with Donald Trump, the US president, in late February or early March.
Suh Hoon, the director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), told parliamentarians this week that backroom negotiators from North Korea and the US would soon begin to draft a joint statement for the leaders’ meeting.


The director briefed the National Assembly Intelligence Committee that a recent trip by senior North Korean official Kim Yong-chol to the White House had resulted in “a wide range of discussions in a favourable atmosphere,” reported the Korea Times.

However, on Tuesday, America’s most senior intelligence chief contradicted Mr Trump’s optimistic prognosis for achieving a breakthrough in persuading Kim to give up his nuclear weapons programme.
Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence, said that North Korea was “unlikely” to renounce its nuclear ambitions as keeping its arsenal was crucial to “regime survival.” 




The Telegraph.