PYONGYANG, April 30. /TASS/. Russia urges North Korea "to show restraint," Ambassador to Pyongyang Alexander Matsegora said at a meeting with North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Han Song Ryol, held at North Korea’s request on Sunday.

Matsegora told TASS that he "called on Korean counterparts to show restraint and refuse from actions which might stir up tensions in that region."

Han Song Ryol believes that escalation in the Korean Peninsula has been caused by "the US-South Korea maneuvers directed at the DPRK (abbreviation for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) along with concentration of strategic weapons of the United States."

In the wake of a nuclear threat from the US, he said, North Korea "will be persistent in taking measures to bolster national nuclear deterrence forces so as to defend the country’s sovereignty and vital rights as well as peace in the peninsula."

The two diplomats spoke for development of cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

On Friday, North Korea test-fired another ballistic missile, just hours after a special session of the UN Security Council had ended discussions on the situation in the Korean peninsula.

The next day, the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group sailed into the Sea of Japan for joint navy drills with South Korean warships.