Putin says putting pressure on North Korea is a 'dead-end road'

By James Griffiths, CNN

Updated 0240 GMT (1040 HKT) September 1, 2017

(CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin has weighed into the North Korea crisis, warning the US and others against going down a "dead-end road" and calling for talks to resolve the issue.

"Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile program is misguided and futile," Putin said in an article released Thursday by the Kremlin, ahead of the BRICS summit in Xiamen, China.

"The region's problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions. Provocations, pressure and militarist and insulting rhetoric are a dead-end road," Putin said.

His comments were published hours after the US and South Korea conducted a mock bombing raid on the Korean Peninsula that was denounced by Pyongyang as a "rash act."

Russia was a participant in the six-party talks, which took place in the mid-2000s in an attempt to get North Korea to abandon its then burgeoning nuclear program.

In his published comments, the Russian president said the situation on the Korean Peninsula was "balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict."