Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said imposing sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear missile programme was “useless and ineffective”, BBC reported. Putin said the “military hysteria” will only lead to a “global catastrophe”.
The Russian president’s comments came a day after the United States urged the United Nations Security Council to impose stricter sanctions on Pyongyang. Putin was speaking after the Brics summit in China on Tuesday.
“Sanctions of any kind would now be useless and ineffective,” Putin said, according to BBC. “They’d rather eat grass than abandon their programme unless they feel secure...We should promote dialogue among all interested parties.”
Putin also argued that it was “ridiculous” of the Donald Trump administration to ask for Moscow’s help with North Korea after imposing sanctions on Russian companies, Reuters reported.
India and other countries on Sunday had urged North Korea to refrain from actions that “adversely impact peace and stability in the region and beyond”. On Sunday, North Korean state media claimed that they had successfully conducted a hydrogen bomb test. This was the country’s sixth underground nuclear test since 2006. It triggered an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 on Sunday morning, which is five to six times more powerful than the seismic activity recorded after Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test.
In August, the UN had banned North Korean exports and limited investments in the country as a measure to stop them from undertaking nuclear programmes.
‘Trump is not my bride’: Putin
On August 31, the US administration had ordered the closure of Russian consulate in San Francisco, and asked Moscow to shut down its chancery annex in Washington, DC, and a consular annex in New York City. When Putin was asked if he was disappointed with Trump, he said, “He is not my bride. I am also not his bride, nor his groom.”
“Trump is guided by the national interests of his country, and I by mine. I very much hope that we will be able, as the current US president has said, to reach some compromise in resolving bilateral and international problems,” Putin said, according to Bloomberg.
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