Russian Pipeline Diplomacy Could Calm Korean Peninsula

If completed, the pipeline would provide Russia with a new market for its natural gas, which it needs all the more as European countries have been moving to reduce their reliance on Russian energy. Lee also appears eager to implement the project, which he hopes will go down as one of his key achievements. During his visit to Russia in 2008, Lee agreed with Dmitry Medvedev, then Russian president, to a memorandum of understanding on a deal for South Korea to import at least 7.5 million tons of natural gas annually, about 20 percent of its demand, from Russia through a pipeline beginning in 2015. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made clear Pyongyang’s support for the project during his talks with Medvedev at a military camp in Siberia months before he died on Dec. 17. When he met with Lee again in St. Petersburg in November, Medvedev tried to ease Seoul’s worries over the safe operation of the section of the pipeline that would pass through North Korea, pledging Moscow would take all the responsibility for any halt in gas shipments. Putin is expected to step up efforts to forge a favorable environment for the scheme, probably assuming a mediating role in resolving the nuclear standoff with the North.