The talks between South Korean and Russian leaders last week showed that the two countries have much room to enhance economic partnership and share critical interests in securing stability in Northeast Asia.

During their meeting in Vladivostok on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Lee Myung-bak and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed to work together to resolve the North Korean nuclear standoff and accelerate collaboration on a gas pipeline project.

The two leaders noticeably expressed a common view that whether to maximize the potential of economic partnership between their countries depended on a stable regional situation.

While hoping Seoul and Moscow would closely cooperate in settling the North Korean nuclear issue, Lee emphasized that eliminating the long-standing danger to regional security was vital for the gas pipeline and other joint projects to proceed. Putin responded that Russia had “great interest” in stability on the Korean Peninsula and was ready to make joint efforts with South Korea toward achieving it.

In a message he sent to North Korea’s young new leader Kim Jong-un on Sunday to congratulate on the 64th founding anniversary of the Pyongyang government, Putin said that expanding “constructive and practical cooperation in various fields” would serve the interests of the peoples of the two countries.

Trilateral projects involving Russia and the two Koreas, including the schemes to build a gas pipeline passing through the three nations and link the Trans-Siberian Railroad with the inter-Korean railway, could help ease regional tensions by providing the North with attractive incentives.

Experts estimate that the deal to bring Siberian natural gas to South Korea through North Korea would enable the impoverished regime to earn up to $100 million per year in transportation fees.

As Lee indicated during talks with Putin, such lucrative multilateral projects, which could be implemented if Pyongyang gives up its nuclear weapons program, might help induce it to “make up its mind” to move toward serious reform and openness.

Putin, who began his third presidency in May after serving as prime minister for four years, has been active in realizing the gas pipeline scheme, seeing it as essential to heightening Moscow’s strategic presence in the region and securing money to help bolster the Russian economy.

He attended a ceremony in Vladivostok in September last year to open the gas pipeline from Sakhalin Island to the port city in the Russian Far East. The section is seen to have been built in consideration of the possibility of being extended to South Korea.

If completed, the pipeline would provide Russia with a new market for its natural gas, which it needs all the more as European countries have been moving to reduce their reliance on Russian energy.

Lee also appears eager to implement the project, which he hopes will go down as one of his key achievements. During his visit to Russia in 2008, Lee agreed with Dmitry Medvedev, then Russian president, to a memorandum of understanding on a deal for South Korea to import at least 7.5 million tons of natural gas annually, about 20 percent of its demand, from Russia through a pipeline beginning in 2015.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made clear Pyongyang’s support for the project during his talks with Medvedev at a military camp in Siberia months before he died on Dec. 17. When he met with Lee again in St. Petersburg in November, Medvedev tried to ease Seoul’s worries over the safe operation of the section of the pipeline that would pass through North Korea, pledging Moscow would take all the responsibility for any halt in gas shipments.

Putin is expected to step up efforts to forge a favorable environment for the scheme, probably assuming a mediating role in resolving the nuclear standoff with the North.

Both Seoul and Pyongyang seem poised to correspond to Putin’s initiatives as they have their own needs to boost ties with Moscow to increase leverage with or reduce reliance on China and the U.S.

Seoul officials, especially diplomatic strategists in the next administration to be inaugurated in February, must do their best to make the most of the room for maneuver offered by Russia.