MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. North Korea’s nuclear issue can be solved only through a dialogue without preconditions, while pressure and threats are a dead-end road, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his article in the run-up of the BRICS summit published on Friday.

"Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile programme is misguided and futile," Putin said in his article, headlined "BRICS: Towards New Horizons of Strategic Partnership," to be published by the leading media of the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) ahead of the group’s summit due on September 3-5 in China.

"The region’s problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions. Provocations, pressure and militarist and insulting rhetoric are a dead-end road," Putin said.

The Russian president described the situation on the Korean Peninsula as "balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict." He reiterated that Russia and China "have created a roadmap for a settlement on the Korean Peninsula that is designed to promote the gradual easing of tensions and the creation of a mechanism for lasting peace and security."

The Russian-Chinese roadmap rules out threats or use of force and envisages a complex political and diplomatic solution to all problems of the Korean Peninsula, including the nuclear issue, through a dialogue without preconditions.

Early on Tuesday, Pyongyang launched yet another ballistic missile that flew over Japan’s northeastern territories and most likely splashed down in the Pacific some 1,180 kilometers east of Cape Erimo, Hokkaido. According to the South Korean military, the missile flew 2,700 kilometers, with maximum flight altitude of 550 kilometers.