SIX PARTY TALKS: GOR URGES MEASURED PACE ON NEXT

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 003114

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/26/2017
TAGS: PREL PARM MNUC KNNP KN RS
SUBJECT: SIX PARTY TALKS: GOR URGES MEASURED PACE ON NEXT
STEPS

Classified By: Political M/C Alice G. Wells. Reasons 1,4 (B/D).


1. (U) The GOR publicly claimed credit for facilitating
Monday's transfer of frozen DPRK funds to the North Korean
Foreign Trade Bank's account in a Russian bank. Calling it a
positive step toward the resumption of the Six-Party process,
a short MFA statement said that Russia decided to accommodate
a U.S. government request for transfer of the money to a
Russian commercial bank in exchange for "legally binding"
guarantees from the U.S. that "this transaction will not
entail negative implications either for Russia or for the
bank."


2. (C) Moscow expects that the Six-Party Talks can now
address practical steps aimed at the implementation of the
February 13, 2007 understandings, but urges a measured
approach. Maksim Volkov of the MFA Korea Desk told us that
the transfer had created "good conditions" for further work,
but said the GOR would advise against a hasty resumption of
the talks until there were "concrete" questions to be
discussed among the participating countries. Volkov
emphasized that the most important task at this point was to
realize the first obligations stipulated in the February 13
agreements. Although the GOR was flexible about dates for
the next round of talks, Volkov considered that much would
depend on the work of the IAEA team which arrived in
Pyongyang on Tuesday.


3. (C) Moscow's Korea experts also welcomed the U.S.'s
demonstration of "flexibility" and "readiness to engage."
Former Russian Ambassador to South Korea, Georgiy Kunadze
maintained that the U.S. had the ultimate leverage --
normalization of the relationship -- which no other
participating country had and that the U.S. should treat
North Korea as a negotiating partner on an equal footing.
Aleksandr Zhebin, a scholar of the Far Eastern Institute,
argued that engagement with Pyongyang would work where
sanctions had failed. Anton Khlopov, Deputy Director of the
PIR Center, which focuses on nonproliferation issues, took a
slightly different tack. He said that unblocking the impasse
was a welcome move but the process should adhere to the
agreed "action for action" steps, with the burden on the
North to fulfill specified obligations before further
engagement from other five countries.
BURNS