PRESS RELEASE

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Lavrov: No One in Right Mind Wants a Korean War—U.S. Reneged on a Signal in September

Dec. 25, 2017 (EIRNS)—In a Dec. 25 interview with RT, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

"I don’t think that anyone who is in his right mind would like to start a war on the Korean Peninsula. Not only Russian, but also American experts and American officials voiced the assessments of the consequences, including the enormous loss of human life. You can’t strangle North Korea. You can’t impose a total blockade,"

he said.

He continued (in RT's paraphrase):

"The minister adds he feels obliged to describe how the US actually conducts its diplomacy over the Korean crisis. In September, they signaled to Moscow that they would not stage military exercises and that Pyongyang should not be worried until at least next spring. But then the US launched an emergency exercise, which North Korea ignored. And yet another exercise was held later, one of unprecedented scale, which did make Pyongyang react.

"Lavrov says the Americans are trying to cover up their actions with legalities, saying they break no rules when conducting military exercises in the region. But diplomacy is not an area where such tricks work."