Search All Site Content

Total Index: 6298 publications.

Subscribe to our Mailing List!

Sign up for our mailing list to keep up to date on all the latest developments.

Russia-North Korea Economic Relations
Region: Asia
Theme: Economics
Published October 6, 2016
Download PDF

Russia shares a border with the Korean Peninsula, and its declared interest is to maintain peace and stability in the region. During Soviet times, its Korean policy was based on the alliance with the DPRK. After the establishment of diplomatic relations with the ROK in 1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the situation changed. Moscow terminated its military alliance and began to actively build ties with the ROK, which damaged its relations with North Korea. However, since the beginning of this century Moscow has been trying to pursue a balanced policy towards the Korean Peninsula, which, its leaders contend, corresponds to the long-term national interests of the Russian Federation.

The current Russian policy is characterized by a high degree of pragmatism. In February 2013 the Russian president approved a new foreign policy strategy, according to which, Russia aims to maintain friendly relations with the DPRK and the ROK based on the principles of mutually beneficial cooperation. Russia declares that it wants to use the potential of these relations to accelerate regional development and to support inter-Korean political dialogue and economic cooperation as an essential condition of maintaining peace, stability and security in the region.

Russia condemns North Korea’s nuclear program and is making efforts to achieve denuclearization on the peninsula through dialogue and negotiations. Russia supported and fulfills all the resolutions of the UN Security Council imposing sanctions against the DPRK. However, the government considers that isolating North Korea would not help to solve the problem and makes efforts to engage with Pyongyang in the economic sphere not connected with the DPRK’s military programs.

This browser does not support PDFs. Please download the PDF to view it: Download PDF