MOSCOW, March 30 (Itar-Tass) – Russia urges all parties to show maximum restraint in order to avoid a war on the Korean Peninsula, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, March 30.
Moscow “is closely watching the situation on the Korean Peninsula where military rhetoric and tensions have been constantly escalating over the past several weeks,” the ministry said.
“On March 30, the government of the DPRK declared a ‘state of war’ in relations between the two Koreas and issued a warning about an ‘all-out … nuclear war’,” the ministry said. “Large-scale military manoeuvres of the U.S. and Republic of Korea Armed Forces are underway in the south of the peninsula, with the participation of strategic bombers which can carry nuclear weapons.”
“We feel negative about any statement or move that leads, one way or another, to escalation of tensions. We hope that all parties will show maximum restraint and responsibility for the fate of the Korean Peninsula,” the ministry said.
“We maintain constant contact with our partners in the six-party talks in order to keep events from developing beyond the political and diplomatic framework,” it said.
Russia hopes that the situation in the Korean Peninsula will not cross the dangerous line, beyond which there will be no return, Ambassador-at-Large Grigory Logvinov, the head of the Russian delegation for the six-party talks, told Itar-Tass.
“We cannot remain indifferent to what is happening near our eastern border,” the diplomat said. “We hope that all the parties will show maximum responsibility and restraint and no one will cross over the dangerous line, beyond which there will be no return,” he said.
A joint statement of the DPRK Government and the Workers’ Party of Korea, published on March 30, said that the DPRK would solve all problems pertaining to inter-Korean relations “according to the wartime regulations.”