October 12, 2007 (LPAC) - "Consider: just as a realistic prospect for ending North Korea's nuclear program has emerged, there is a loud clamor for the use of military force against Iran," former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who plays an important role in Russian-U.S. Relations, emphasized in a commentary published in the Moscow News yesterday. Primakov's comments are a direct challenge to British asset, Dick Cheney's war drive against Iran. Despite the enormous challenges posed by North Korea's situation - arguably far more serious than those posed by Iran's relations to the rest of the world -- real success has been achieved towards ending North Korea's nuclear military program. The "search for peaceful solutions, albeit slow and painstaking, can eventually produce a positive result. This is an instructive lesson to those who rely on the use of force to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons," Primakov wrote.

Primakov was sober on the results of the Oct. 4 inter-Korean summit: from discussions with South Korean leaders during a recent visit there, his view is that overall policy is not Korean reunification, as was achieved in Germany, but rather a continuation of the two separate Korean states, combined with an effort to "build a system of effective interaction in various areas." While there will be "gradual rapprochement in the economic realm" between the two Koreas, it will be done, at best, "through cooperation in special (i.e., limited) economic zones, set up on North Korean territory." The situation in Germany, where the economic gulf between west and east remains all too clear, has "dampened" South Korean enthusiasm for what would be much greater economic problems posed by attempted unification with North Korea, Primakov wrote. South Korean policy is to use limited assistance to "prevent an abrupt regime change in North Korea" and the chaos that would unleash. But economic aid has a greater importance: It should "undoubtedly, facilitate reforms along the same lines as in China or Vietnam" in the devastated North Korean economy, which would "create conditions not only for improvement of North Korea's socio-economic situation, but also for strengthening regional stability," Primakov wrote.