Posted on 08/08/2017 2:44:17 PM PDT by Red Badger
Russia's top diplomat downplayed North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling following a diplomatic summit Tuesday, and said the United States has to take "prudent" steps to deescalate the crisis.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that North Korea always complains about sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. The regime threatened a "physical" response to the new sanctions and warned South Korea it has the ability turn "Seoul into a sea of flame," but Lavrov betrayed little alarm.
"Strictly speaking, this is how representatives of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have reacted to all previous U.N. Security Council resolutions," he told reporters Tuesday following an east Asia diplomatic summit in the Philippines. "We will judge by their actions."
Lavrov's response was consistent with the ambivalent rhetoric from Russian and Chinese representatives at the U.N. Security Council after both countries supported a U.S.-drafted resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea. Despite that apparent agreement, they faulted the United States for conducting military exercises with South Korea and deploying a new missile defense system to the region.
"All must understand that progress towards denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will be difficult so long as [the North Korean regime] perceives a direct threat to its own security," Vasily Nebenzia, Russian ambassador to the U.N., told the council Saturday. "For that is how the North Koreans view the military build up in the region, which takes on the forms of frequent, wide-ranging exercises and maneuvers of the U.S. and allies as they deploy strategic bombers, naval forces, and aircraft carriers."
North Korea's top diplomat used those talking points in response to the new sanctions, and said that "possession of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles is a legitimate option for self-defense in the face of a clear and real nuclear threat posed by the US," per CNN.
Lavrov reiterated Russia's desire for the United States to start direct talks with the North Koreans and other countries in the region.
"We are confident that there is no alternative to the resumption of the political process, in particular the six-party talks," he said Tuesday. "We will certainly continue our dialogue with our North Korean neighbors. We expect that with the prudent approach of all players, naturally including the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan, we will be able to find a solution that suits all parties."
President Trump's team wants to use sanctions to force North Korea to negotiate an elimination of their nuclear program.
"We don't think having a dialogue where the North Koreans come to the table assuming they're going to maintain their nuclear weapons is productive," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters last week. "We would like to sit and have a dialogue with them about the future that will give them the security they seek and the future economic prosperity for North Korea, but that will then promote economic prosperity throughout Northeast Asia."
too late.
I’d suggest that both the Rooskies and the (can I say Commie chinks?), both who have a border with the NORKs pressure Fat Boy to give it up.
Combined with a water blockade, it’d seem pretty easy to isolate the place with a northern border shutdown.
Wonder if they are wondering if the winds will blow the fall out clouds over their cities?
No.
That would be Racist. The correct term is "Commie Gooks".
Westerly winds..............
Yup. Not good and maybe they (the Russians and Chinese) should be a little concerned and do something about the little tyrant.
This is not the US facing the Soviet Union all during the Cold War, when the threat of “Mutual Assured Destruction” stayed the hand of somewhat rational men.
If North Korea makes even a false start, and one mortar round lands in South Korea, or a ship-borne missile hits even close to one of our military ships in convoy around our aircraft carriers in the vicinity, there is no rational person on the other side to talk to.
The assassination of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo started a tumbling of dominoes that could not be stopped, because there was no rational person on the other end of the phone line.
The bloodiest war in history up to that time had just commenced.
{Doesn't sound too bad to me.)
Are the Chinese a Race? As opposed to the Japanese?
Taiwanese?
Cambodians?
Vietnamese?
This tells me that whatever Pres. Trump, SOS Tillerson and UN Amb. Haley are doing is working.
Keep it up!
Respect Russia. Work with Russia.
Never TRUST Russia!
"This watch was on your daddy’s wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew if the gooks ever saw the watch it’d be confiscated, taken away. The way your dad looked at it, that watch was your birthright. He’d be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy’s birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something...
Prudent..? Yes.
And it was the RUSSIANS who actually goad those involved in the assassination, on and helped them!
Hay, I loved your TV show...
Exactly right. IL is a madman with nukes. That is new. I hope and pray a solution is found that doesn’t start a war. No one wants that..except maybe a madman.
And Iran is watching..@$%×@!!
They are talking now about bombing Guam. I suggest if even one of our military dies as a result of this butt pimple we nuke North Korea off the map. Wipe it clean in minutes
Artemis Gordon;
My bad....
As Dr Redding told Dr Carrington in “The Thing” (1951), “We’re facing something unpredictably dangerous.”
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