MOSCOW, March 11. /TASS/. The plans to deploy the US anti-missile defense systems on the Korean Peninsula are above any possible threats, which may come from the DPRK, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after his talks with the Chinese counterpart Want Yi on Friday.
"As for the anti-missile defense, there we are sharing a common position with China, on which we shall insist at international forums, at the UN and in respective formats," Lavrov said.
"We consider it absolutely important not to be hiding behind explanations claiming those plans were caused by the DPRK's ventures," he said. "The plans, which the US has been nursing together with the Republic of Korea, are in their scales above any possible threats, which may come from the DPRK, even if to consider Pyongyang's recent actions; likewise the plans from the US anti-missile defense’s another segment — the European one — cannot be compared with the threats, which the US claimed initially as reasons for making the European anti-missile defense."
"Thus, in both directions, we shall be proving absolute lack of reasons for plans of the kind, which threaten breaking up the global parity and the strategic stability," the Russian foreign minister said. "We shall call our American counterparts to an honest and open discussion."
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North Korea should listen to UN Security Council and return to negotiations table
Moscow hopes that Pyongyang will listen to UN Security Council and return to the negotiations table, Russian Foreign Minister went on to say.
"We hope that Pyongyang’s leadership will make appropriate conclusions, take into account UN Security Council’s demands and return in the end to the negotiations table on the basis of the joint statement of participants in the six-party process from 19 September 2005," Lavrov said.
The foreign minister noted that it is important to show Pyongyang’s the inadmissibility of its actions without "suffocating the regime."
"We think that the UN Security Council resolution adopted on March 2 will play an important role in promoting this approach as it is rather strict and sends a very strong signal to Pyongyang but at the same time does not give anyone carte blanche for suffocating the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and leaves the door open for negotiations," Lavrov concluded.
On March 2, UN Security Council unanimously approved an unprecedentedly tough resolution against North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test on January 6 that violated all previous UN SC resolutions. The document imposes a partial trade blockade on North Korea. UN member countries are now banned from purchasing the following from North Korea - coal, iron ore, rare earth metals, gold, vanadium and titanium. Deliveries of rocket and jet fuel to North Korea were also prohibited, along with any types of weapons and luxury goods.
On January 7 North Korea announced a successful launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 space satellite. A month earlier, on January 6, Pyongyang carried out an underground nuclear test, the fourth one in the past ten years. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1718, 1874, 2087 and 2094 prohibit any activities linked with nuclear technologies and development of ballistic missiles in North Korea.