Total make-believe

Why Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko is not destined to reconcile South Korea with North

On October 12, a new atlas of the world was published in North Korea, where Crimea is designated as Russian territory. This fact inspired the Russian embassy in Pyongyang so much that something like a press release appeared on its official Facebook page: “The Scientific Encyclopedia Publishing House (DPRK) has released a new political Atlas of the World. We paid attention to the fact that the Crimean peninsula (pp. 240-242) is already painted in Russian colors. As the DPRK Foreign Ministry explained to us, the republic respects the results of the referendum held in Crimea on the entry of the peninsula into the Russian Federation, considers its results legitimate and fully in line with international legal norms.

At the same time, the embassy considered it necessary to emphasize that “Pyongyang treats the issue of belonging to the Kuril Islands in a similar way” - that is, in the new North Korean atlas, all four islands of the South Kuril ridge - Habomai, Iturup, Shikotan and Kunashir - which he dares to claim Japan, brazenly calling them "northern territories", are painted in Russian colors. It's hard to see with the naked eye, but in diplomacy a lot has to be looked at through a magnifying glass.

Pyongyang's generous gesture and the tenderness of the Russian embassy on this occasion is already the second signal this autumn that Russia is able to dance with North Korea the same tango that it definitely cannot dance with the United States, which the Secretary of State has already drawn attention to in turn Rex Tillerson, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The first signal was a call to stop cornering North Korea, whose people would eat grass but not surrender to the enemy, was delivered by Vladimir Putin at the economic forum in Vladivostok in September.

And now - signal number three: with the mediation of the speaker of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, a negotiation process between the two Koreas - North and South - is being prepared and is even about to start. The head of the National Assembly (parliament) of the Republic of Korea, Chung Se Gyun, according to Russian officialdom, has practically agreed to come to Russia to meet with his North Korean counterpart. True, Pyongyang is still hesitating, but the beginning of trouble is beginning ... We will persuade. Let's sit down at the negotiating table. Let's force a direct dialogue. And while the President of America threatens North Korea with "complete destruction", we will release the dove of peace one by one into the sky - to the delight of all progressive mankind ...

In 2005, what should have happened happened: the DPRK withdrew from the negotiations, acknowledging along the way that it had nuclear weapons. And then again she began to pretend that she did not want him

For all the external difference between today's Russia and North Korea, their state-socio-political structure has one fundamental feature: both here and there - everything is for fun. The ruling party - make-believe. Parliament - make-believe. Foreign policy, including negotiations in the international format and statements by the Foreign Ministry, is also, in fact, make-believe, because all the decisions for the sake of which negotiations seem to be being held have long been adopted by a narrow circle of people at the suggestion of the most important person in this circle, and the country's position on them is fixed for years, and even decades to come. The only thing that is not fake is what is on the mind of the first person. And what is really on the mind of the first person is not given to anyone to know, everyone knows only that this is very often far from the same as what is on his tongue. As a result, it turns out that even what the first person says (sometimes even the first person in another country) is also pretend.

For example, when the young President Putin, who imagines himself a sower of good in the world, came to Pyongyang in 2000, the then leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong Il, promised him to curtail the North Korean nuclear program. A little time passed, and this same leader, smiling, said that he was joking.

And a year later, Kim Jong Il told Putin in a big secret that his country already has an atomic bomb and that they can “reach far” with the help of conventional art systems (read: we have the whole of Seoul with its environs in sight, and where they stand our guns - the neighbors don't know). This episode, about which Putin himself spoke just the other day, says what? That by the time the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program began in 2003, Putin already knew that the DPRK was a de facto nuclear power and would never conduct real negotiations on its disarmament, but would only evade and play for time . Nevertheless, Russia, as it were, not pretending, but in fact - pretending - participated in the negotiations.

In 2005, what should have happened happened: the DPRK withdrew from the negotiations, acknowledging along the way that it had nuclear weapons. And then again she began to pretend that she did not want him.

In 2008, she demonstratively blew up the cooling tower of her nuclear center in Yongbyon. And she continued to beg the West to supply her with light water reactors - for the needs of the energy industry: they say, they need only 2 million kW a year. And in general, she would have humanitarian aid in the equivalent of 1 million tons of fuel oil - and that's it, goodbye atom, even peaceful. And this, of course, was also make-believe, because it is not make-believe that Kim Jong Il has already set a course for the creation of a hydrogen bomb: if I don’t have time myself, my son will finish the job.

In 2011, Kim Jong Il in the military town of Sosnovy Bor in Buryatia personally promised the young Russian President Medvedev, who, following the leader in the Russian tandem, imagined himself a sower of good in the world, that the DPRK was ready to return to the six-party talks without preconditions. Of course, he said it on purpose. And Medvedev nodded pretendingly, because he could not help but learn from his senior comrade that once the leader of the Land of the Morning Calm had an unhealthy “joking”.

The hydrogen bomb, which is already in the North Korean arsenal, is not a make-believe. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, which in three or four years will be able to reach the United States, are also

And now - a course of mediation from Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko. Of course, this is also all make-believe, because even Valentina Ivanovna knows that the support of her undertaking by some kind of Inter-Parliamentary Union, which she is so proud of and which she publicly declares, is an empty phrase for North Korea. The same, however, as the word "parliament" itself. And there is nothing to say about the mysterious phrase "round table".

But this does not bother Valentina Ivanovna, because she really hopes that North Korea will accept the terms of the game. Well, why not, really. After all, we are used to the fact that we have everything for fun ...

Alas, here Valentina Ivanovna may not guess right.

Times have changed. The hydrogen bomb, which is already in the North Korean arsenal, is not a make-believe. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, which in three or four years will be able to reach the United States, too.

And most importantly, the young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, unlike his dad, has never joked and is not going to joke. In general, if you notice, he speaks little, and if he speaks on TV, then he lays not softly, but deliberately harshly, without bothering with diplomatic rhetoric. (They say this is part of the image of a strong leader that his sister Kim Ye-jong developed for him - at the behest of her brother, she recently became a deputy member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). However, this is also make-believe - for an internal audience. But this that under him, North Korea, if it is not stopped by someone even more not inclined to joke, apparently, will acquire powerful and reliable carriers of nuclear warheads - this is not pretend. This specific, clearly set goal is no longer camouflaged under " the needs of the energy sector”, not under “and supply us with fuel oil in the form of humanitarian aid”, or even under the readiness to participate in some kind of peaceful negotiation process under the auspices of Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko.