MOSCOW. Dec 15 (Interfax) - Russia could guarantee a settlement on the Korean Peninsula together with other countries if necessary, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told Interfax in an interview.
"I believe this is possible. If such guarantees of ours are required, I think we can definitely guarantee an agreement of the sort. Naturally, Russia should probably be joined by other participants," Morgulov said.
"We think it would suffice to agree on principles of the peaceful co-existence, mutual diplomatic recognition, and some basic things which could help lift mutual concerns and bring warmth to the current atmosphere of total mistrust in order to begin negotiations between the two parties [the United States and North Korea]," he said.
The Russia-China roadmap proposes that the sides "start by freezing all of their activity, i.e. the missile and nuclear activity of North Korea and, respectively, the military exercises held by the United States and its allies, before working together to lift mutual concerns and build confidence by stopping the exchange of threats," Morgulov said.
"It will then be possible to tackle more complicated issues, such as the replacement of the truce agreement with a peace treaty, which would signify the end of war, because, as you know, the war on the Korean Peninsula is technically not over, as well as the creation of a collective peace and security mechanism," he said.
This mechanism "naturally implies the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the absence of nuclear weapons both in the north and south of Korea, and the demilitarization of this peninsula," Morgulov said.
"There is also the matter of foreign military presence; that is, we propose that the third stage address the entire range of issues, including denuclearization, demilitarization, foreign military presence, etc. This is the only way to create an efficient mechanism of peace on the peninsula," Morgulov said.