Putin’s ‘Dangerous’ Game With North Korea

[TomSea]

Putin’s ‘Dangerous’ Game With North Korea 17/34
The Daily Beast  Anna Nemtsova

MOSCOW—The only North Korean restaurant in Moscow is in a basement, and the staff doesn’t like to answer questions, or be asked them. When a group of North Korean officials entered, they went straight away to the VIP area at Koryo Phenyan, as the eatery is called. Eventually, reluctantly the waitresses confirmed that the place is owned by Pyongyang’s embassy.

Meanwhile the flatscreen TV on the wall showed North Korean military commanders, national dancers, singers, and from time to time the square face of “dear,” “brilliant,” “wise” leader Kim Jong Un.

Occasionally, one finds Russian and North Korean officials drinking together here in Moscow, but independent experts have few illusions about Kim Jong Un. He is “very capricious, wayward and ready to kill easily,” Andrei Lankov, a Russian specialist in Korean studies, wrote succinctly in one recent analysis.

Even so, in the showdown building between Washington and Pyongyang, Moscow hopes it can carve out an important role as a go-between, perhaps currying favor with all sides. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said recently that Russia has a “possibility for mediation” between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Continued: http://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/putin%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98dangerous%e2%80%99-game-with-north-korea/ar-AAqwLoI?li=BBr5KbJ