Russian defence delegation visits N. Korea

A delegation of the Russian Defence Ministry is visiting North Korea amid efforts "to revise the policy of mutual threat and intimidation", media reports said.

The delegation led by Victor Kalganov, vice director of the Russian National Defence Command Centre, arrived here on Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency said.

The visit came two weeks after another delegation of Russian lawmakers visited Pyongyang.

The Russian defence delegation landed in the country on the same day the US announced its readiness to open nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea, without preconditions.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "Let's just meet and talk about the weather if you want." He insisted that the economic and diplomatic sanctions would continue until "the first bomb drops", the BBC reported.

On November 29, the Kim Jong-un regime test-fired a newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile that it claimed could strike anywhere in the US mainland.

Russia has called for restraint over the Korean Peninsula nuclear crisis, Xinhua news agency reported.

"It is essential to take a step back and carefully weigh the consequences of each move,... because this policy only leads to consequences that are opposite to those that are sought after," Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian envoy to the UN, had said.

--IANS

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