Post date: Apr 05, 2013 1:55:19 PM
Russian Foreign Ministry says it's trying to clarify situation on North Korean suggestion to evacuate diplomats.
TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN (APRIL 5, 2013) (RT) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday evening (April 5) that he is in close contact with the United States, South Korea and China, trying to clarify the situtaion in North Korea that led to a suggestion of pulling diplomats out of the country.
North Korea made the suggestion to the Russian embassy in Pyongyang, but a spokesman for the embassy told Reuters Russia had not yet made a decision to evacuate staff."The offer was made to those embassies, which are in Pyongyang and we are currently trying to clarify the situation. We have asked several questions, which were to be posed to our North Korean neighbors in this case, and we are in close contact with our Chinese partners as well as our U.S., South Korean and Japanese counterparts. You can basically say we are in contact with the participants of the P5+1 talks," Lavrov told reporters in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, where he was attending a meeting of CIS foreign ministers.
In Moscow, the ministry's spokesman reiterated Lavrov's words and said escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula was unacceptable.
"We are seriously studying the warning, considering all of their details. We're confident in the imperative impossibility of military actions unfolding on the Korean Peninsula. And we think it's categorically unacceptable to intensify military hysteria. We are counting on the maximum restraint and 'cold blood' of all of the parties involved," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
North Korea told Britain it cannot guarantee diplomats' safety after April 10 in event of a military conflict, according to a British government source.
The North Korean Foreign Minister proposed that Russian and other diplomatic missions on Friday consider evacuating employees amid the aggravation of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.