SOCHI. Oct 16 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of being intractable in situations like the Iranian nuclear deal and North Korea on Monday.
"An agreement was reached on the Iranian nuclear program two years ago. It was approved by the UN Security Council and hailed by the entire world, yet Washington is withdrawing from this deal now. This is again the problem of deal-making capacity as a value in foreign policy," Lavrov said at a panel discussion at the World Festival of Students and Youth in Sochi.
"An agreement settling the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula was reached with North Korea in 2005 - this situation is frequently compared to the Iran situation - and everyone started to fulfill the agreement, but only several weeks later Washington imposed unilateral sanctions without consulting anyone, and started chasing a bank in Macao which was conducting certain operations with North Korea. Sanctions were imposed immediately instead of trying to look into the subject," Lavrov said.
"This is not an excuse for Pyongyang," Lavrov added.
Pyongyang "has been defiant. It is blatantly violating every resolution of the UN Security Council," Lavrov said.
The U.S. has also been intractable in the Ukrainian settlement, he said. "The Ukraine settlement process demonstrates the utmost degree of intractability," Lavrov said.
There is a problem with the deal-making capacities of the Minsk Agreements signatories, Germany and France, as well, he said.