Putin warns against ‘intimidating’ North Korea after latest missile launch

Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned North Korea’s latest missile launch as “dangerous” but warned against “intimidating” Pyongyang.
Speaking in China, Putin called for a peaceful solution to the ongoing tensions on the Korean peninsula, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported.
“I would like to confirm that we are categorically against the expansion of the club of nuclear states, including through the Korean Peninsula,” Putin told reporters. “We are against it and consider it counterproductive, damaging, dangerous,” he said.

But in comments that appeared aimed at the US, he said that “intimidating (North Korea) is unacceptable.”
For its part, North Korea said the missile test was in response to the nuclear dangers and threats posed by the US and its followers.
“We will conduct ICBM tests anytime and anywhere in accordance with the decisions made by our central leadership,” North Korea’s ambassador to China Ji Jae Ryong said at an impromptu press conference at the country’s embassy in Beijing Monday.

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