ASTANA (Sputnik) – A war on the Korean Peninsula should be prevented as tragedies would be "innumerable," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters, Ryabkov said that if the war were to start nobody would try to figure out who started it.
"An absolutely new reality would emerge, tragedies would be innumerable… I think we should fight against this option as hard as we can," he said when asked how likely the war on the Korean peninsula was.
"The main outcome of this meeting should be … the understanding that force tools are categorically unacceptable, that it is a road to nowhere … The sanctions tools do not lead to desired decisions," Ryabkov told reporters.
"The joint Russia-China ideas could be the roadmap for resolution," the Russian official said referring to the "double freeze" plan proposed by Moscow and Beijing in Jule on the ways to de-escalate the situation. Moscow and Beijing called on Pyongyang to stop nuclear tests and urged Washington and Seoul to refrain from conducting joint drills.
Earlier in the day, North Korea launched a missile which flew over Japan before falling into the Pacific Ocean 1,180 kilometers (733 miles) east of Hokkaido, a Japanese island. The Japanese military said the projectile was likely a Hwasong-12 ballistic missile. The launch was the second in the last few days as on Saturday, North Korea test fired short-rage ballistic missiles off the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula.
Russia has repeatedly voiced concern over the escalation on the Korean peninsula. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier that risks of conflict between the US and North Korea turning into a full-fledged war are high, this would involve a huge number of victims and should be prevented via dialogue.
