MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) - The deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea provides a solid argument to North Korea to go ahead with developing its own nuclear program and is bound to evoke a proportional military response, Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Federation Council international affairs committee, said in an interview with Interfax on Tuesday.
"A special international mechanism has been set up to resolve the problem of North Korea. And the lack of efficiency in its implementation should in large part be attributed precisely to its participants' one-sided actions. After all, Pyongyang has also received a solid argument to continue developing its missile program," Kosachyov said.
"It is clear that the emergence, close to the Russian territory, of missile defense systems of a state that now calls Russia its number one enemy, then doesn't, is bound to evoke an appropriate military response. Whether this is necessary for this region, South Korea (where, by the way, the location a THAAD battery had to be changed under the pressure of public protests) and for the new U.S. administration itself, is a question to which neither Washington, nor Seoul clearly have the desire to find a sensible answer, preferring instead to raise the stakes in a pointless race of threats with North Korea. Which, of course, won't take long to respond as well," he said.