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News ID: 47492
Publish Date : 15 December 2017 - 22:21

North Korea Vows ‘Merciless’ Response to U.S. Siege



MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Russia said Friday it is not ready to "strangle” North Korea economically with new stringent sanctions.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said the degree of pressure on North Korea was approaching "a red line,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
North Korea says decades of foreign pressure and threats, manifested in repeated joint military drills by the U.S. and its regional allies, have forced it to pursue a sophisticated weapons program and develop deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The U.S. has been pressing for a complete shut-off of oil supplies to North Korea with newer sanctions.
North Korea on Thursday warned that it would take "merciless self-defensive" measures should the United States enforce a naval blockade against the country.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), citing a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Pyongyang would see the siege as "an act of war".
"Should the United States and its followers try to enforce the naval blockade against our country, we will see it as an act of war and respond with merciless self-defensive counter-measures as we have warned repeatedly," the agency said.
The spokesman stated that U.S. President Donald Trump was taking an "extremely dangerous and big step towards the nuclear war" by seeking such a blockade, KCNA said.
Morgulov urged dialogue instead of harsher sanctions. He said Moscow had not had high-level contacts with the new North Korean leadership but such communication was possible "in theory.”
Morgulov said Russia had many other communication channels with North Korea, which "in one way or another are bearing fruit.”
On Thursday, the presidents of the U.S. and Russia discussed means of de-escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula over phone.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently said the U.S. was willing to enter into negotiations with North Korea without preconditions.
Washington’s special envoy for North Korea on Friday expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Tillerson’s diplomatic offer of unconditional talks.
Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok that the talks could take place without preconditions. Yun acknowledged it was unclear whether North Korea would be willing to talk following a period of accelerated nuclear activity, saying, "It’s very hard to discern what their intent is without having real dialog.”
"Let’s see how they respond... I am very hopeful that diplomacy has a long way to go before any next steps are considered,” he said.
The White House which under Trump has used fiery and sometimes derogatory rhetoric against North Korea earlier contradicted Tillerson by saying time was not right to talk to North Korea.