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Russia, China to put forward initiative on North Korea at UN meeting

Russia's top diplomat said attempts to justify belligerent solutions to North Korea are unacceptable

MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Moscow and Beijing will put forward a joint initiative signed on July 4 on settling the Korean Peninsula crisis at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"This is a comprehensive initiative. First of all, it underlines the need for a full implementation of the UN Security Council’s resolutions, but notes that these resolutions do not only demand that North Korea should halt missile and nuclear tests. It contains a statement of fact that there is the need to resume peace talks and find an exclusively political and diplomatic solution to the current situation on the Korean Peninsula," the minister said.

"For Russia and China, it is absolutely clear that any attempts to justify a belligerent solution, using the UN Security Council’s resolutions as a pretext, are unacceptable and will lead to unpredicted consequences in the region, which neighbors Russia and China," Lavrov said, noting that the attempts of "strangling" North Korea’s economy are unacceptable.

The task set by the UN Security Council is to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and it should not be used as an attempt to change the regime in North Korea, Lavrov said. "We assume that the task that has been set by the UN Security Council is to denuclearize the whole Korean Peninsula, and it cannot and should not be used as a pretext to try and change the regime in North Korea," he said.

"Today the UN Security Council in New York will discuss the situation with implementing the previous resolutions, and Russia and China will detail their initiative and will promote it," Lavrov said.