Paul Carroll discusses Russia's role in 6-party talks

In the last of a three-segment piece for Voice of America, Ploughshares Fund Program Director Paul Carroll discusses Russia’s role in the six-party talks with North Korea. North Korea has refused to participate after a U.N. rebuke following its recent launch, but Russia recently offered North Korea use of Russian territory for future satellite launches. 

Carroll commented that the Russian proposal could be attractive to Pyongyang for several reasons: “One is - I could see where it would be possibly internationally observable. And it could be verified that in fact, it was a satellite and space launch attempt and not just another disguise of a missile test.”  The second, he said, is that it would “bring the North Koreans a little bit more into the international norms of behavior. I would hope that the Russians, if they were to offer such a carrot, sort of explicitly would impose some kind of conditions through which the launch would be monitored and transparent."
While other analysts, like Ploughshares grantee Jim Walsh of MIT, argue that the Russian proposal would not appeal to North Korea largely for reasons of national prestige, Carroll and Walsh agree that the six-party talks would be the perfect forum in which to discuss the Russian proposal.

Listen to the interview here, or read part one and part two of the interview.