01 September, 2017
South Korea's top office has confirmed that President Moon Jae-in will hold summit talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin next week on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
The agency added that the USA and South Korea were "taken aback" by North Korea's recent missile launch, the country's "first military operation in the Pacific".
"The problems in the region will only be solved via direct dialogue between all concerned parties, without preconditions", Putin said.
According to the Russian news agency Tass, the Russian president described the situation on the Korean Peninsula as 'balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict'.
It is the latest in a series of strongly-worded threats from Donald Trump, who warned that North Korea would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if they continuing to threaten the US.
A road map formulated by Moscow and Beijing, which would involve North Korea stopping work on its missile programme in exchange for the United States and South Korea halting large-scale war games, was a way to gradually reduce tensions, wrote Putin. "In a few months that will be a reality", Le Drian told RTL radio.
Shortly after his arrival on a two-day visit, the South Korean leader will hold bilateral talks with Putin on a wide range of issues that will include North Korea and its recent missile provocations. "It must be diplomatically active".
On Tuesday, the reclusive nation fired a ballistic missile over Japan in defiance of UN resolutions and new sanctions imposed last month, which are expected to slash its export revenues by one-third.
Vladimir Putin has insisted that imposing sanctions on Kim Jong-un in a bid to block the dictator's nuclear ambitions is a "dead-end road".
This year alone, North Korea has launched at least 13 missiles and some analysts believe it could have viable long-range nuclear missiles before the end of Trump's first term in early 2021.
Trump also said "talking is not the answer" to the crisis, without giving more details about his next move.
In response to North Korea's latest move, Japanese fighter jets joined United States bombers and stealth aircraft in military exercises on Thursday in skies south of the Korean Peninsula.
The US has placed sanctions on Russian Federation in the wake of Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014.