The fact that it was prepared in strict secrecy and little is known about its results makes it even more intriguing. The Russian president said that Kim Jong-il touched upon all the current matters: bilateral, multilateral and regional security issues, including the North Korean nuclear problem and the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is a particular and complex country which is often hard to understand. It is also Russia’s neighbour. For Russia, which is trying to become more active politically and economically in that region, the complication lies on the Korean peninsula — an issue that directly concerns its strategic interests and national security. To efficiently protect its interests and get détente back on track on the peninsula, Moscow has to maintain political dialogue and dispose of confidential channels of communication with both the South and North.

This is what Moscow is trying to achieve.

Moscow does not believe in the myth of Kim Jong-il’s ‘unpredictability’ and ‘irrationalism’. Instead, it considers the North Korean government’s recent actions to fit into a certain logic which may look quite tough and unusual in terms of a Western liberal mentality. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pyongyang’s nuclear program, however it may affect the global non-proliferation regime, is the only guarantee North Korea has that it will not meet the same fate as states like Yugoslavia or Libya, which were chosen by the West as targets. To stop North Korea’s nuclear activity, the international community should try to decrease Pyongyang’s sense of acute insecurity by diplomatic means including restarting the Six-Party Talks.

It appears that the summit in Ulan-Ude is becoming an important stage of the dialogue between Moscow and Pyongyang to settle the nuclear problem in Korea, which was interrupted in late 2008. Since the beginning of the year Russia, concerned with the possible consequences arising from this situation, has taken active diplomatic efforts to find a way out of the deadlock. It was mainly thanks to Moscow that, in March, North Korea agreed to go back to the negotiating table of the Six-Party Talks without setting any preliminary conditions. Now, following the results of the summit in August, the North Korean leader announced its intention to introduce a moratorium ‘on production of nuclear materials and their tests’. But it is not clear if this is an unconditional promise, or if North Korea will make concessions only if other partners make concessions to them. Whichever it may be, Moscow’s gentle and insistent approach — which allows Pyongyang to be flexible — proves to be more efficient than the US and South Korean pressure aimed at isolation.

The interest in North Korea, which resumed during the recent summit, was triggered by the plans of the Trans-Korean gas pipeline from the Russian border to supply considerable amounts of gas (over 10 billion cubic metres annually) to South Korea. This idea is not new, but talks were stalled after the outbreak of confrontation between the two Koreas in 2010.

But this year Pyongyang and Seoul spoke almost simultaneously about their participation in the promising projects. South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung Hwan, who visited Moscow in early August, declared the official consent of his government. Now it seems that DmitryMedvedev and Kim Jong-il also approved the ‘deal of the century’. Of course, so far this is only a political decision and its practical implementation will require a colossal amount of work bilaterally and trilaterally.

One thing is clear: without normal cooperation between Pyongyang and Seoul there will be no progress. And only time will tell whether they are ready for cooperation. But the parties understand that a successful implementation of the projects will bring significant profits to all the participants and contribute to the stabilisation of the Korean peninsula, in which everyone is interested. This is quite encouraging. For Moscow this is also a unique chance to strengthen its presence on the peninsula and to contribute to the reconciliation of the two Koreas.

The Russian-North Korean summit, by all appearances, was quite useful. The summit showed that Russian policy on the Korean peninsula is intensively developing and has some ideas in store for the future. These two independent directions aimed at both Korean capitals are what make it sustainable and promising.

Alexander Vorontsov is Head of the Korean and Mongolian Studies Department at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Oleg Revenko is a senior researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Affairs, Russian Academy of Sciences.

This article first appeared here at the Strategic Culture Foundation, Moscow.