Bloomberg Politics:
Russia said North Korea is still two to three years from being able to carry out a long-range strike on the U.S., offering diplomacy a chance to halt the secretive Communist state’s nuclear and missile programs.
“Unless we can find a political solution,” it’s “inevitable” that Kim Jong Un’s regime will have intercontinental ballistic missiles within that time, Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for security affairs and disarmament, said in an interview in Moscow. “We need to stop these programs now, and sanctions will only work within four to five years.”
Russia will “never recognize North Korea” as a nuclear state, which puts Moscow and Washington in “close” positions, Ulyanov said. Russia and China have urged a so-called “dual freeze” to ease the crisis, under which North Korea would suspend missile and nuclear tests “at least for a few months,” and the U.S. and South Korea would halt joint maneuvers to allow negotiations to restart, he said.
