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Putin is one of the few sane politicians on the block.
North Korea nuclear crisis: Putin warns of planetary catastrophe
As
Kim Jong-un reportedly prepares further missile launch, Russian
president says further sanctions would be ‘useless’
5
September, 2017
The Russian president,
Vladimir Putin, has warned that the escalating North Korean crisis
could cause a “planetary catastrophe” and huge loss of life, and
described US proposals for further sanctions on Pyongyang as
“useless”.
“Ramping up military
hysteria in such conditions is senseless; it’s a dead end,” he
told reporters in China. “It could lead to a global, planetary
catastrophe and a huge loss of human life. There is no other way to
solve the North Korean nuclear issue, save that of peaceful
dialogue.”
On Sunday, North Korea carried
out its sixth and by far its most powerful nuclear test to date. The
underground blast triggered a magnitude-6.3 earthquake and was more
powerful than the bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
during the second world war.
Putin was attending the Brics
summit, bringing together the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa. Speaking on Tuesday, the final day of the summit in
Xiamen, China, he said Russia condemned North Korea’s provocations
but said further sanctions would be useless and ineffective,
describing the measures as a “road to nowhere”.
Foreign interventions in Iraq
and Libya had convinced the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, that he
needed nuclear weapons to survive, Putin said.
“We all remember what
happened with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. His children were killed, I
think his grandson was shot, the whole country was destroyed and
Saddam Hussein was hanged ... We all know how this happened and
people in North Korea remember well what happened in Iraq.
“They will eat grass but
will not stop their [nuclear] programme as long as they do not feel
safe.”
Analysis How the nuclear-armed
nations brought the North Korea crisis on themselves
Failure to honour terms of the
1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty has helped create ground for
Kim Jong-un’s recklessness
Read more
A US bid for the United
Nations security council to vote on 11 September on new sanctions is
“a little premature,” Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s UN ambassador,
said on Tuesday. Russia is a permanent member of the security council
and has veto power.
The US’s top diplomat
acknowledged that more sanctions on North Korea are unlikely to
change its behaviour, but insisted that they would cut off funding
for its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.
“Do we think more sanctions
are going to work on North Korea? Not necessarily,” Nikki Haley,
the US ambassador to the UN, told a thinktank in Washington. “But
what does it do? It cuts off the revenue that allows them to build
ballistic missiles.”
Diplomats have said the
security council could consider banning North Korean textile exports,
banishing its national airline and stopping supplies of oil to the
government and military. Other measures could include preventing
North Koreans from working abroad and adding top officials to a
blacklist aiming at imposing asset freezes and travel bans.
China accounted for 92% of
North Korea’s trade in 2016, according to South Korea’s
government. China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would take
part in security council discussions in “a responsible and
constructive manner”.
But China is likely to block
any measure that could cause instability and topple the regime of Kim
Jong-un, sparking a refugee crisis and potentially allowing tens of
thousands of South Korean and US troops to move north as far as the
Chinese border.
German chancellor Angela
Merkel and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe spoke by telephone on
Tuesday and agreed that sanctions against Pyongyang should be stepped
up.
The row over further sanctions
came as South Korea refused to rule out redeploying US tactical
nuclear weapons on its territory – a move that could seriously harm
efforts to ease tensions as signs emerged that Pyongyang was
preparing to launch another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
on or around 9 September, when it celebrates its founding day.
Seoul has routinely dismissed
the option of basing US nuclear weapons on South Korean soil for the
first time since the 1990s, but the country’s defence minister,
Song Young-moo, said “all available military options” were being
considered to address the growing threat from North Korean missiles.
Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at
the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul, said: “No one in
South Korea is seriously proposing that the US reintroduce strategic
assets [such as nuclear weapons]. That’s something they might
discuss further down the line, but there are no plans for that to
happen right now.”
But calls have also been
growing in South Korea for the country to develop a nuclear deterrent
independent of the US.
On Tuesday, South Korean
warships conducted live-fire drills, with further exercises planned
this week. “If the enemy launches a provocation above water or
under water, we will immediately hit back to bury them at sea,”
said Capt Choi Young-chan, commander of the 13th Maritime Battle
Group.
The drills came hours after
Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, agreed
“in principle” to remove restrictions on the size of Seoul’s
missile warheads and approved a deal to sell it “many billions of
dollars’” worth of US military weapons and equipment.
Washington appears to have
moved to ease South Korean doubts about US commitment to its security
after Trump openly accused its east Asian ally of “appeasing”
Pyongyang by holding out for a negotiated solution to its nuclear and
ballistic missile programmes.
Speaking to a nuclear
disarmament conference on Tuesday, North Korea’s ambassador to the
United Nations in Geneva, described Pyongyang’s nuclear test as a
“gift package” for the US.
“The recent self-defence
measures by my country, DPRK, are a gift package addressed to none
other than the US,” said Han Tae Song. “The US will receive more
‘gift packages’ from my country as long as its relies on reckless
provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,” he
added without elaborating.
North Korea has been observed
moving what appeared to be a long-range missile towards its west
coast, according to South Korea’s Asia Business Daily. The
newspaper claimed the missile had been transported towards the launch
site overnight on Monday to avoid surveillance.
South Korea’s defence
ministry said it was unable to confirm the report, although ministry
officials told parliament on Monday the Pyongyang regime was
preparing to launch more missiles.
On Monday, the US ambassador
to the UN, Nikki Haley, accused North Korea of “begging for war”,
adding that the time had come for the security council to impose “the
strongest possible” sanctions after Sunday’s test of what
Pyongyang claimed was a hydrogen bomb that could be loaded on to an
ICBM.
Agencies contributed to this
report
Putin North Korea Would Rather Eat Grass Than Give Up Nuclear Weapons
Watch
Putin
calls sanctions useless
Russian
President Vladimir Putin gives a press conference on the sidelines of
the 9th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit
in the southeast city of Xiamen on Tuesday, September 5.
Posted
September 05, 2017
Putin warns ‘hysteria’ over North Korea threatens ‘global catastrophe’
-
Putin thinks that sanctions could lead to large-scale human suffering
-
Putin, speaking after a BRICs summit in China, also warned against further ramping up military hysteria around North Korea
By
Reuters
Russian
President Vladimir
Putin said
on Tuesday that imposing tougher sanctions on North Korea over its
nuclear missile program would be counter-productive and said threats
of military action could trigger "a global catastrophe."
Putin,
speaking after a BRICs summit in China, criticized U.S. diplomacy in
the crisis and renewed his call for talks, saying Pyongyang would not
halt its missile testing program until it felt secure.
"Russia
condemns North Korea's exercises, we consider that they are a
provocation ... (But) ramping up military hysteria will lead to
nothing good. It could lead to a global catastrophe," he told
reporters.
|
|
"There's
no other path apart from a peaceful one." Putin was speaking
after South Korea said an agreement with the
United
States to scrap a weight limit on its warheads would help it respond
to the North Korea threat after Pyongyang conducted its sixth and
largest nuclear test two days ago.
Russia,
which shares a border with North Korea, has repeatedly joined China
in calling for negotiations with Pyongyang, suggesting that the
United States and South Korea halt all major war games in exchange
for North Korea halting its testing program.
US approach 'ridiculous'
While
describing additional sanctions as "the road to nowhere",
Putin said Russia was prepared to discuss "some details"
around the issue, without elaborating.
The
Russian leader also lashed out at the United States, saying it was
preposterous for Washington to ask for Moscow's help with North Korea
after sanctioning Russian companies whom U.S officials accused of
violating North Korea sanctions.
"It's
ridiculous to put us on the same (sanctions) list as North Korea and
then ask for our help in imposing sanctions on North Korea,"
said Putin
"This
is being done by people who mix up Australia with Austria," he
added.
The
United States has floated the idea of requiring all countries to cut
economic links with North Korea to try to strong-arm Pyongyang into
changing its behavior.
In
Moscow's case, that would mean stopping using North Korean laborers,
tens of thousands of whom work in Russia, and halting fuel supplies
to Pyongyang. Russia has so far refused to contemplate doing either.
See
also -
North
Korean delegation arrives in Russia, to be joined shortly by South
Korean President: The
Eastern Economic Forum is a unique meeting which will be attended by
delegations from Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, South Korea
and North Korea.
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