Lavrov believes US will not attack North Korea

MOSCOW, September 24. /TASS/. The United States would not deliver a strike on the DPRK, as they are confident Pyongyang has nuclear weapon, which may be used in response, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the NTV weekly program on Sunday.

"On [North] Korea the US will not deliver a strike, as they not only suspect, but know for sure that they have nuclear bombs," he said. "President [Vladimir] Putin reiterated a few times it is impossible to imagine the US or anybody else could have 100% information about absolutely all facilities."

"I am not protecting North Korea, I simply say practically all agree this analysis," he added.

According to the minister, this logic was shared by most counterparts on the margin of the UN General Assembly. At the same time, he stressed its base is the US’ experience of invading Iraq.

"They made a strike on Iraq exclusively as they had 100-percent information no mass destruction weapons remained there," Lavrov said. "There, a UN commission had been working, and they intrusively crossed the country’s territory, visited all facilities they wanted."

"Thus, as the commission came to the conclusion Iraq had not met fully the requirements, those who issued orders on strikes realized clearly those were lies," he continued. "Those, who ran that commission - let’s not go into details, there was somebody from Australia - took a huge sin."

The foreign minister expressed hope analysts in Washington would consider the logics, he had outlined. Otherwise, he said, the situation may fail "and suffering would be thousands and thousands, dozens of thousands, or even hundreds of innocent people in South Korea, North Korea, of course, in Japan, and Russia and China are very close there".