December 21, 2007 (LPAC)-- South Korea's President-Elect Lee Myung-Bak met with Russian ambassador Gleb Ivashentsov just days after his victory, offering Korean collaboration, potentially from both the North and the South, in the development of the Russian Far East. "If we together with Russia carry out the development project, it will be a turning point in economic cooperation in the Northeast Asian region and boost Russia's development as well," Yonhap news agency quoted him as telling the envoy. "I'd like to get on this project right after I assume office," which will be on February 25. Although there was no mention of the construction of a Bering Strait tunnel, there was a Korean spokesman at the April conference in Moscow on the project.

Ivashentsov delivered a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin, congratulating Lee on his landslide election victory on Wednesday and inviting him to Moscow. Putin was quoted by the envoy as saying in the letter that "President-elect Lee is well-known in Russia and has always supported the bilateral relationship" and that relations "will rise to a much higher level during Lee's term of office."

Yonhap reports that Lee envisages combining South Korea's advanced technology with North Korea's labor and Russia's natural resources.

Lee pledged during his campaign to maintain the "Sunshine Policy" of working toward reunification of North and South Korea, with some changes. There is serious discussion of a "Marshall Plan" for the development of the North, once the nuclear issue is resolved. Clearly, working together on the development of Russia's Far East would solidify that impulse toward peace and development on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia generally.