The Wall Street Journal - Russia Claims U.S. Seeks to Provoke North Korea
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30 ноября 2017 г. Nathan Hodge.
Foreign Minister Lavrov accused Washington of trying to push North Korea’s leader into “rash action”.
MOSCOW—Russia’s top diplomat accused the U.S. on Thursday of trying to provoke North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into “rash action,” pushing back against a call by Washington for countries to increase pressure on Pyongyang after its latest intercontinental-ballistic-missile launch.
The U.S. last week announced it is planning military drills with South Korea in December. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said U.S. officials had earlier “hinted confidentially” that large-scale U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers would be put on hold until spring to allow for a break in the crisis.
“Suddenly…they announced they were holding large-scale exercises in December,” Mr. Lavrov said. “It seems that everything was done on purpose, so that Kim Jong Un snaps and takes another rash action. It’s sad.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force last week said the exercises were “annual” and “regular,” and the U.S. military said the drill “is designed to ensure peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, and reaffirms the U.S. commitment to stability in the Northeast Asia region.”
Mr. Lavrov’s remarks come after the U.S. urged the world to suspend diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and for China to stop crude-oil trade with the North Korean regime. Both Beijing and Moscow have condemned North Korea’s missile tests, but have opposed blocking oil trade with North Korea.
“The Americans must first of all explain to us what they are trying to achieve,” Mr. Lavrov said, referring to remarks by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley. “If they want to find a pretext for destroying North Korea, as the United States representative in the U.N. Security Council stated, let them say this directly.”
While the Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on North Korea, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for negotiation, warning that Moscow would block U.S.-led efforts to impose an oil embargo on North Korea.
“Breaking all ties with Korea is the easiest part, but a settlement, that’s the real question,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday, the news agency Interfax reported. “We believe that it is necessary to concentrate our joint efforts precisely on the search for an answer to this question.”
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