Williams 1 Russian Federation Emily Williams

2/5/2014

Although North Korea and Russia have somewhat friendly relations, Russia still believes that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons because it would greatly complicate Russias security interests in Northeast Asia and Russia is a part of the non proliferation treaty.

North Korea has been declared as possessing nuclear weapons since 1957 and has been proliferating the non proliferation treaty since North Korea complied to it in 1985. As stated in Article III of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Each State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful purposes (Treaty). February of 2012, North Korea announced its cease of uranium enrichment and nuclear tests due to negotiations with the United States, But in April, North Korea did conduct a long-range missile-test. States Claire Larson in North Korea Nuclear Issue (Larson). This is just one example of North Korea blatantly disobeying the treaty. North Koreas violations to the treaty are a great threat to neighboring countries. As one Seoul dweller told the New York Times, Having a nuclear North Korea as a neighbor is like facing a person holding a gun with your bare hands. (Doc 2) North Korea has practically ignored the treaty and gone ahead and made nuclear weapons as though no agreements had been made, obviously previous efforts to prevent North Korea from having nuclear weapons were not a success. One of the things that has been tried multiple time in the past in an attempt to denuclearize North Korea is placing sanctions, one example of failed sanctions is explained in

the article Its Not a Hermit Kingdom, and 4 Other Myths About North Korea. The article is describing an approach pursued by the Obama Administration called strategic patience, basically we completely isolated North Korea with incredibly strict sanctions in the hope that this would convince them to stop behaving so badly. Strategic patience had the opposite effect; Pyongyangs behavior was worse than ever before and its WMD programs continued to make progress. We need an immediate, new, different, and creative solution to this problem. Russia sees the solution to this problem in a negotiated settlement we believe that threats, sanctions, and accusations are counter productive. Russia wants to maintain peace in the Korean peninsula, and while we do not want North Korea to have nuclear weapons necessarily we have somewhat friendly relations with North Korea. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes denuclearizing North Korea is the most important task at hand. (Article #4) While maintaining peace will definitely be a main factor in our consensus denuclearizing North Korea is our main focus. In a best case scenario, we would like to see no sanctions or military force be inflicted on North Korea. Where this may be an unrealistic goal we believe it is something to strive for. The United Nations should approach North Korea in a friendly manner and rather than threaten them, offer them support in exchange for deactivating their nuclear weapons. Although this has been attempted without success in the past, one thing we could do differently here would be to give North Korea a little more freedom. If we allow North Korea to do its own thing and offer them a little bit of our trust they are more likely to trust us in further acts and thus potentially entirely give up their nuclear power. This resolution, if agreed upon, will be a long and tedious process. North Korea will not give up all of its nuclear power immediately. Making this resolution a success will require support from the entire UN and a lot of patience. Russia believes that the best way to view and solve this crisis is with an open mind and trust. Russia understand that this is a lot to ask for and while we will not agree to any form of military Williams 3

force being inflicted in North Korea we will allow some slight compromises. The biggest sacrifice we are willing to make is to impose light sanctions. The only way our resolution will succeed is to create some trust between North Korea and the rest of the world and in order to make that happen we can not go to war. This is the best solution because it minimizes the chances of war and it will help improve relations between the world and North Korea.

Williams 4 Bibliography

"Current Russia-North Korea Relations: Challenges and Achievements." The Brookings Institution. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014.

"DPRK Briefing Book : Russian Policy on the North Korean Nuclear Crisis."Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2014.

"Russia Agrees with US on N. Korea, but Warns against Military Drills - RT Russian Politics." Russia Agrees with US on N. Korea, but Warns against Military Drills - RT Russian Politics. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2014.

"Russia and Weapons of Mass Destruction." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2014.