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President Putin

MOSCOW. – Pressuring North Korea over its nuclear missile programme is “misguided and futile”, Russian President Vladimir Putin says, arguing only dialogue without pre-conditions can resolve the crisis.

The Korean Peninsula was “balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict”, Putin wrote in an article to be published yesterday ahead of a summit of Brics economies in China on Sunday.

“Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile programme is misguided and futile,” he wrote in the article sent to media in Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA – the Brics member states.

“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 Russia and China, North Korea’s most important ally, had drawn up a roadmap to ease tensions and create lasting peace without the use of threats or military force.

In Seoul, a senior South Korean official also urged Pyongyang yesterday to return to the negotiating table, while warning against “continuing provocations.

“Our government’s stance that we need to peacefully resolve North Korean nuclear issues and Korean Peninsula issues remains unchanged,” Lee Eugene, South Korean Unification Ministry deputy spokesperson, said. “We urge North Korea to stop making rhetorical criticisms and threats and to come out to the path of dialogue and co-operation.”

Lee said Seoul and Washington continue to monitor North Korea’s activities, acknowledging Pyongyang is capable of conducting another nuclear test “at any time within a short period of preparations”.

The comments came amid US President Donald Trump’s ongoing war of words with North Korea, with the US leader warning Pyongyang of “fire and fury” and the North threatening to fire missiles at the US Pacific territory of Guam. – Al Jazeera.