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Russia's UN envoy says adoption of UN resolution on North Korea 'scarcely possible'

The voting will take place on September 11

UNITED NATIONS, September 5. /TASS/. Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzya said on Tuesday he hopes the UN Security Council will coordinate a resolution on toughening the sanctions against North Korea until the end of the week and will have voting on it.

He said it in a comment on the U.S. plans to put up the document for the voting next Monday, September 11.

"I think it’s a little premature because I don’t think we’ll be able to brush it up so fast," he said.

Nebenzya admitted that he personally had not seen the draft resolution yet. "We’ll have a look at it and we’ll see what’s in it," he said. "The main problem as we said before is that, unfortunately, with all the good intentions the sanctions don’t work the way they should have been working and that’s the main issue."

"It’s not that we categorically deny the possibility of a new resolution but the resolution should be working," Nebenzya said. "And we saw with the previous ones that they were not (working)."

"We definitely want more on the political side of that resolution," he said.

When a reporter asked him what might be included in the resolution, Nebenzya said the only thing that was on the table was a joint Russian-Chinese proposal.

"We’ll welcome other initiatives," he said. "I heard yesterday the Swiss had offered their mediation. If that works we’ll be happy."

Nebenzya said Russian was maintaining contacts with the DPRK authorities through the Russian embassy in Pyongyang and the DPRK embassy in Moscow. He recalled that China also had an embassy in Pyongyang. "I’m sure they’re talking (with the DPRK government), too. I don’t know how fruitful their contacts are."

Nebenzya said Russia wanted a mention of a need for political dialogue based on the recent initiatives that had been undertaken. "As for the exact language (of formulations in the resolution), we’ll have to see."

One of the reporters speaking to Nebenzya mentioned speculations in the media that Russia wanted a separate resolution on diplomacy in resolving the current crisis.

"We need probably a separate resolution that stresses diplomacy rather than sanctions, that’s true," he answered saying that he had spoken about it somewhat earlier.

Nebenzya also said that at the instructions from Moscow he had sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General and the President of the UN Security Council asking them to circulate a draft resolution on protecting the OSCE special monitoring mission in southeastern Ukraine. The letter was sent out on Tuesday morning, he said.