MOSCOW. Sept 12 (Interfax) - An alternative to broader sanctions should be searched for and six-nation negotiations should be resumed even though Russia has backed the latest UN Security Council resolution on North Korea, State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky said.
"Russia has backed the new UN Security Council resolution regarding North Korea, which followed the H-bomb test, similar to every previous imposition of sanctions. We have never supported the self-proclaimed nuclear status of Pyongyang and are fully aware of the threat constituted by the North Korean problem to the region and the world at large. However, it is necessary to search for an alternative to the sanctions and step up the use of diplomatic and political resources," Slutsky told reporters on Tuesday.
It looks as if the world is back to the era of the 1962 Caribbean crisis, and the danger of a nuclear war is looming again, Slutsky said.
"Perhaps, instead of rattling the saber and threatening pre-emptive strikes, Washington should recall its own history and offer security and non-aggression guarantees to North Korea, just like Cuba was offered in the past; Seoul could support those guarantees in exchange for the suspension of missile and nuclear tests by Pyongyang," he said.
That would be a good prerequisite for resuming the dialogue and the six-nation negotiations on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Slutsky said.