In May 2010, in connection with the investigation of the death of the South Korean frigate Cheonan, tensions on the Korean Peninsula escalated, one of the strongest since the 1953 armistice. Washington-supported Seoul, based on the conclusions of the international commission, stated that the frigate was sunk by a North Korean torpedo and severed trade and economic relations with the North. Pyongyang has distanced itself from these accusations and put its armed forces on alert.

The escalation has once again drawn the attention of the entire international community and the UN Security Council to this reserve of the cold war and a long-standing potential hotbed of armed conflict, which is increasingly becoming nuclear-tinged. Moreover, this hotbed in Northeast Asia is the only one on the planet in which 3 current members of the UN Security Council - the United States, China (then China was represented in the UN by Kuomintang Taiwan) and Russia - directly clashed in 1950-1953, as well as a potential new permanent member of the Security Council - Japan, which at that time was a rear base American troops*.

1^{incident was largely resolved by a statement of the UN Security Council President on 9 July 2010. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the decision adopted by the UN Security Council should help to de-escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula as soon as possible, restore dialogue and interaction between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea (ROK), as well as resume the six-party talks with the participation of the DPRK, China, ROK, Russia, the United States and Japan on the including a return to work on the establishment of a mechanism for peace and security in Northeast Asia}.

The next day, a North Korean Foreign Ministry official said that the DPRK is ready to make efforts to resume the six-party denuclearization talks. ** The Korean Peninsula, as well as the conclusion of a peace treaty instead of the current armistice agreement. However, Washington believes that "diplomatic opportunities can potentially arise" "if (North Korea) fulfills its commitments made in 2005, takes positive steps towards denuclearization, and shows readiness to improve relations with its neighbors, including South Korea."²

By and large, this is not the first and, unfortunately, probably not the last aggravation.

If the position of the main "Western" players on the Korean Peninsula (like it or not) - the United States and the Republic of Korea-is generally transparent, then the approach of the leadership of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea is impenetrable, like the London fog in the stories of the father of modern detective literature, Arthur Conan Doyle. Which, like the stories about Bigfoot and aliens, gives rise to a lot of guesses and fictions, including the most caricatured and fantastic ones.

In this regard, it seems that the article by A.V. Vorontsov and P. Agaltsov, Ph. D. in History, deserves attention, which contains a rather serious analysis of the position of the DPRK leadership on the nuclear issue and an interesting attempt to identify the underlying motives of Pyongyang's behavior in the international arena.

E. M. Rusakov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, expressed some thoughts on this subject in the afterword.

* For more information, see: Kulkin D. V. Anachronism of the "forgotten war" / / Asia and Africa Today, 2009, N 10.

** Denuclearization - the diplomatic wording adopted in September 2005 at the six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue, which allowed Pyongyang to replace "nuclear disarmament of the DPRK" with "denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula "(editor's note).

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