VLADIVOSTOK (Sputnik) —The United States will not strike North Korea because Washington is sure that Pyongyang has nuclear weapons, Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday.
"The United States hit Iraq only because it had precise information that no weapons of mass destruction was left there… The United States will not hit North Korea because it does not only suspect, it clearly knows that it [Pyongyang] possesses nuclear weapons," Lavrov told the Russian NTV channel in an interview.
"If this analysis is not considered in the United States — I hope that analysts have already started working on this — the situation could spiral out of control, and dozens of thousands of innocent people, if not hundreds of thousands, will suffer in South Korea, North Korea and Japan, besides, Russia and China are also [located] nearby," Lavrov warned.
North Korea has launched several ballistic missiles and tested a nuclear weapon for the sixth time in recent months, alarming its neighbors and prompting fresh economic sanctions from the United States and the United Nations.
