A recent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un indicates that Moscow has begun considering Pyongyang as an "important source of leverage" to reassert its influence in Northeast Asia, a Chinese expert said Thursday. 
  
Putin, under pressure from the West over his role in the crisis in Ukraine, met Choe Ryong-hae, a top official in the North's ruling Workers' Party and one of Kim's close confidantes, in the Kremlin last week and voiced support for deeper relations with the North. 
   
For North Korea, the warmer relationship with Russia could give it a counterbalance against China's dominant influence in its moribund economy at a time when political relations between Pyongyang and Beijing remain strained, particularly after the North's third nuclear test last year. 
  
But, the growing intimacy between Pyongyang and Moscow could complicate efforts by South Korea and the United States to beef up pressure for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. 
  
"Pyongyang's efforts to seek closer ties with Moscow seem to indicate that the three major players, China, Russia and the U.S., have now diverged in their strategies of dealing with North Korea," Da Zhigang, director of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies at the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, wrote in an op-ed published by the Global Times, a newspaper run by China's ruling Communist Party.
  
"Russia is clearly aware of the peninsula's significance in the peace and stability of Northeast Asia and the whole of the Asia-Pacific region, and hence wants to use North Korea to help with its security, and economic and geopolitical interests that are shifting eastward," the expert said. 
  
Da said Russia "is turning itself from an onlooker to a participant in the North Korea issue and has begun to view the nation as an important source of leverage in its Asia-Pacific strategy instead of merely a burden." 
  
North Korea's relations with Russia had been soured since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Moscow's interest on the Korean Peninsula has been predominantly economic since then. 
   
However, Putin appears to be bolstering ties with North Korea to strengthen Russia's influence in Northeast Asia at a time when the U.S. and the European Union are stepping up sanctions over Ukraine. 
   
The U.S. and China, North Korea's last-remaining patron, have remained far apart over how to resume the long-stalled multilateral talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. 
   
South Korea and the U.S. have called on China to play a greater role in leading North Korea to demonstrate its commitment to denuclearize before any resumption of the nuclear talks with the North can take place, but China's efforts have still been seen as more accommodating toward North Korea.
   
The six-party talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, have been stalled since late 2008. (Yonhap)