The Foreign Ministry cited an uptick in military activity by the US and its allies South Korea and Japan in the region of late
The Korean Peninsula could soon descend into a new crisis, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has warned. A senior diplomat attributed the rising tensions primarily to an increasing US military presence in the region.
Speaking to the news agency TASS on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Monday, Georgy Zinoviev, the head of the Foreign Ministry’s First Asia Department, argued that the “dynamics of events on the Korean Peninsula indicates that a new crisis is approaching.” He cited the increasingly warlike rhetoric coming from both North Korea and the US, as well as South Korea and Japan. The diplomat also noted that Washington and its allies have been ramping up joint military maneuvers in the region.
“For example, for the first time since 1981 an American Kentucky submarine with nuclear-capable ballistic missiles has appeared in South Korean waters,” Zinoviev told reporters.
He also noted that trilateral US-South Korea-Japan missile defense exercises are being held more regularly than before.
Washington’s claims that these drills are purely defensive in nature are hard to believe, he said, adding that the maneuvers also have “anti-Russian and anti-Chinese undertones.”
He went on to stress that de-escalation would only be possible if the US and its regional allies put on hold their military maneuvers and revised their sanctions-based approach.
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