RUSSIALINK: “U.S. has no clear understanding of need to positively respond to Pyongyang’s steps on denuclearization – Russian Foreign Ministry” – Interfax

File Photo of U.S. Embassy Moscow, with Russian Foreign Ministry Building in Distance

MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) – Washington does not fully realize the need to positively respond to North Korea’s steps in the direction of denuclearization and normalization of relations, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said.

“The way the South Korean administration is building its line – step by step, in parallel, by reciprocal steps – is a good example to the U.S. partners, too. Unfortunately, the U.S. administration currently has no clear understanding of the need to react positively,” Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Oleg Burmistrov, who supervises the settlement process on the Korean Peninsula, said in an interview with Interfax.

The positive changes in the situation on the peninsula “are now very fragile, they have not passed the ‘point of no return’ yet, the main thing now is to solidify them, to give a new impetus to the negotiation process,” he said.

“We are now in the middle of the second stage of the Russian-Chinese ‘roadmap’ for the settlement, which envisages, in the first place, normalization of relations between the key players: North Korea and the United States, North Korea and South Korea,” Burmistrov said.

“The inter-Korean track is now even ahead: breakthrough results, including in the military sphere, have been achieved on it,” he said.

“We are cautiously optimistic: everything is now developing in the right direction, even though the process has its ups and downs. And of course, the second stage should be solidified by new meetings between the leaders, in the first place, Trump and Kim Jong Un, new agreements and full normalization of relations,” he said.

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