"It was strange to see yesterday's situation in the UNSC, when Russia and China proposed to accept the statement of the UNSC chair that could in general terms back the agreements, preliminary but already reached, about the inter-Korean summit, about the possibility of holding a meeting between the North Korean and US leaders, [the statement] that could express a positive attitude of the UNSC to this move away from military tensions and toward a political settlement, and the US side blocked the statement," Lavrov said in an interview with Vietnamese and Japanese media.
Meanwhile, Moscow hopes for the resumption of the six-party talks on the settlement of the North Korean issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday.
"We regularly discuss this approach with all the countries that participated and hopefully will participate in the so-called six-party talks, including Japan. We regularly hold consultations between the diplomats responsible for this area of work. I hope that the 'party of peace' in Korean settlement will prevail in all capitals," Lavrov said.
Russia is absolutely not satisfied with a scenario in which hostilities break out on the Korean peninsula, the minister stressed.
"We are bordered by North Korea, a number of our settlements and industrial facilities are very close, and if something happens and hostilities begin, we are absolutely not happy with it," he said.
The six-party talks were first held in Beijing in 2003, but stopped in 2009 because of some disagreements between the sides that were not directly linked to North Korea's nuclear issues.
Pyongyang has repeatedly said that the six-party talks would not restart, but representatives of other countries continue bilateral or multilateral consultations.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he was not ruling out that there would be no common position on the North Korea policy in Washington after the departure of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state.
"We will see how the US position is formed. Maybe there will be several stances … Let us see how Washington will act and who will take the lead," Lavrov said in an interview.
However, Russia welcomes planned contacts between the United States and North Korea, as well as between North Korea and South Korea, Russian Foreign Minister has said.
"We welcome and wish success to the upcoming contacts, primarily the inter-Korea summit which our colleagues told us will take place in April. We were reassured by the fact that the leaders of North Korea Kim Jong Un and of the United States Donald Trump announced their readiness to meet in person. We would only welcome such a meeting," Lavrov told Vietnamese and Japanese media outlets in an interview.
