JERUSALEM — Two of the world's most improbable diplomatic partners, Israel and North Korea, are deep into discussions not only on establishing formal relations but also on possible economic cooperation in what for Pyongyang would be an important chance to break out of its international isolation.
A top official of North Korea's ruling Communist Party is expected to meet with senior Israeli diplomats in Beijing shortly to continue the talks.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has an invitation on his desk to visit Pyongyang, and ministry staffers are already joking about who is ambitious enough to go to the austere North Korean capital as ambassador.
"I can't think of any important issue on which we and the North Koreans have seen things the same way," a senior Israeli diplomat commented this week. "On the contrary, their best friends have been our worst enemies. Just talking to these guys with their (President) Kim Il Sung badges is very, very strange for us."
At a time when the United States and its allies are pressing North Korea hard to conform to treaties against the spread of nuclear weapons, Israel is taking another, softer approach, trying to persuade it that business with the West will pay much better than selling arms to Iran, Syria, Libya and others hostile to the Jewish state.
"Washington has a global concern about non-proliferation, and it is worried about the long-term security of Japan and South Korea," the diplomat said. "Our fears are more immediate--Scud missiles made in North Korea, fired from western Iran and targeted on Tel Aviv."
Israel plainly hopes to persuade North Korea to halt deliveries of its Scud-C missiles, which have a range of about 360 miles, and not to sell its new Rodong-1 missiles, also known as the Scud-D, which will have a range of more than 600 miles, despite a reported order from Iran for 150 of them.
"The purpose of establishing diplomatic relations with North Korea is to prevent its sale of surface-to-surface missiles to Iran," Micha Harish, Israel's industry and trade minister, told worried Japanese in Tokyo this month. "For us, the matter is extremely important and very urgent."
Iran, on account of its Islamic fundamentalism, unremitting hostility to Israel, oil wealth, size and location, has emerged for strategists here as Israel's greatest threat.
