BERLIN. July 13 (Interfax) - Moscow has no close communication channels with Pyongyang and agrees with the Pentagon's account on the unacceptability of any forceful intervention in the Korean Peninsula situation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We have no special channels of communication with Pyongyang though it is our close neighbor but considering the traditions set under the new leader I don't think anyone has sustainable channels of interaction [with North Korea]," Lavrov said in a lecture at the Kerber Foundation in Berlin.
Moscow upholds the United States' and South Korea's refusal to boost military activity in the region and also warns about disastrous consequences in the event that the problem is addressed in a heavy-handed manner, Lavrov said.
"The Chinese proposal that both tests of any kind in North Korea and large-scale exercise of the U.S. and South Korea be frozen so that everyone cool down a bit and sit down at the negotiating table, and start trying to achieve agreements - we are actively supporting the proposal," he said.
"An alternative path, this is very frightening. It wasn't by accident that some time ago, U.S. Secretary of Defense General [James] Mattis said openly that any use of force aiming to solve the Korean Peninsula problem will be a catastrophe. It's true," Lavrov said.
Lavrov also noted that Moscow is adherent to implementing the United Nations Security Council's decisions on North Korea.
"There are the decisions of the [UN] Security Council on North Korea. They are elaborated by all the members of this council and we are strictly adherent to the decisions. We are strongly against those provocations by North Korea," Lavrov said.