MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. Presidents of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, have agreed in a phone conversation that the crisis around North Korea should be solved exclusively in a political and diplomatic manner, the Kremlin press service said on Friday.

"The heads of state have shared an opinion that further escalation, fraught with irrevocable repercussions, on the Korean Peninsula is inadmissible and that this utterly knotty situation needs to be solved by exclusively diplomatic and political means, through the resumption of direct talks," the Kremlin said.

"The leaders resolutely slammed North Korea’s provocations that grossly violate the UN Security Council’s relevant resolutions," it said. "These steps contravene non-proliferation principles and create a severe threat to regional peace and security."

Both Putin and Macron emphasized in their conversation that "Resolution 2375 of the UN Security Council, which was unanimously passed on September 11, has become the world’s appropriate response to Pyongyang’s irresponsible steps."

On Friday, North Korea fired another ballistic missile that flew over northern Japan’s Hokkaido Island towards the Pacific Ocean and fell some 2,200 km to the east of Cape Erimo. This is the sixth time since 1998 when a North Korean missile or its fragments fly over Japan’s territory. According to South Korea’s military, the launch was conducted from Pyongyang’s area. The test was made four days after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.