Moscow ready to support Pyongyang-Washington dialog on nuclear problem - Lavrov

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. Russia will be prepared to support direct contacts between the United States and North Korea on the Korean Peninsula’s nuclear problem, including those within six-party talks by North Korea, China, South Korea, Russia, the United States and Japan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told an annual news conference devoted to the results achieved by Russian diplomacy in 2017. He recalled that Moscow and Beijing maintained proactive cooperation over a settlement on the Korean Peninsula. "As you may know, Russia and China have a joint initiative for transition from confrontation to a political settlement of the problem that emerged on the Korean Peninsula. For a start we suggest everybody should calm down and freeze any confrontational actions, in the first place, military activities, be it missile launches, nuclear weapons tests or large-scale exercises, which the United States has held and still holds in the region jointly with the Republic of Korea and Japan," Lavrov said. "When such a freeze, a moratorium on unfriendly and confrontationist steps takes effect, we will actively support direct contacts between the parties most concerned. As far as the nuclear problem is concerned, I am referring to Pyongyang and Washington in the first place, but we will be prepared to accompany their bilateral dialog within the framework of the six-party process with Russia, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea taking part," he added. Efforts along these lines have turned out no easy, Lavrov remarked. "As I’ve already mentioned, the United States has come very close to saying bluntly a military solution will be inevitable. Everybody understands the disastrous consequences of such an adventure. In a situation where conditions for starting a dialog emerged the most often provocative actions, such as ever lager military exercises around North Korea followed only to trigger another spiral of tensions," Lavrov said. Read more