MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. Russia believes that time is ripe for other countries to take its security proposals for the Korean Peninsula as seriously as possible, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko told the media on Wednesday.
"We believe that all these issues related to the Korean nuclear program and the nuclear issue on the peninsula’s agenda should be resolved collectively, with the participation of all countries in the Security Council and other partakers involved, including Russia and China. We have our own proposals. We believe that time is ripe for approaching them as seriously as possible," he said.
Earlier, South Korea reported multiple launches of missiles, including anti-aircraft missiles, by the DPRK military. It was noted North Korea had also carried out artillery shellings of mock targets in the buffer zone in the Sea of Japan. About 100 shells were fired. One of the DPRK's short-range ballistic missiles was directed towards the South Korean island of Ulleungdo. It splashed down near South Korea’s territorial waters south of the northern dividing line, which Seoul de facto considers as the state border. An air raid alert was declared on the island for the first time in nearly six years. In response to the launches, South Korean aircraft fired three air-to-surface missiles into the sea north of the northern boundary line.
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the situation on the Korean Peninsula was tense. The Kremlin urged all parties to stay calm in order to avoid an escalation. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, stressed that Washington and Seoul had begun the largest military exercises in history on the Korean Peninsula, thus triggering a surge in tensions.