MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. Russia calls for peaceful settlement of frictions between South and North Korea ad for stability in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday after telephone talks with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
"Being guided by these principled positions of ours, we stand for the development of intra-Korean dialogue in the interests of normalization of relations between the two Koreas, between North and South, for settling the entire range of problems of this region by peaceful diplomatic means only," he said.
"Russia is a state bordering the Korean Peninsula. This reason is enough for us, let alone our historic ties with the Korean people, to be interested in maintaining and strengthening lasting peace and stability on this peninsula," he stressed.
According to the Russian top diplomat, Russia and China have already put forth initiatives on settling the situation on the Korean Peninsula, with a package of concrete measures. "We will continue to be guided by this approach, promoting intra-Korean contacts and intra-Korean agreements," he added.
Two states - the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea were established on the Korean Peninsula in 1948. Frictions between the two countries resulted in a war in 1950 that ended after the signing of the Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953 and the establishment of a four-kilometer wide demilitarized zone between the two countries. Since then, the two Koreas have been in a neither-war-nor-peace state.
On Tuesday, North Korea blew up its joint liaison office with Seoul in Kaesong. It was opened in September 2018 to help the two Koreas communicate. Initially, representatives from South Korea and North Korea agreed to meet in Kaesong twice a day, but after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, they switched over to telephone communications.
Earlier, Pyongyang excoriated Seoul for sending propaganda leaflets across the border and pledged to retaliate, going even as far as sending troops to the regions along the demilitarized zone. Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong, first vice director of the United Front Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, openly warned that the office would be shortly demolished.