Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated on Tuesday that dialogue, including the restart of long-stalled multilateral nuclear talks, was the only option if the issue of North Korea’s growing missile and nuclear capabilities is to be resolved.

“We are confident that there is no alternative to the resumption of political process, particularly the six-party talks,” the Kremlin-funded news agency TASS reported Lavrov as having said.

Pyongyang has aggressively responded to the adoption on Saturday of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2371 which, if properly enforced, could cut the country’s export revenues by USD$1 billion.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK