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Lavrov Calls on US, North Korea to Start Negotiations

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Reuters)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Reuters)
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Lavrov Calls on US, North Korea to Start Negotiations

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Reuters)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Reuters)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Monday the United States and North Korea to launch negotiations, reported the RIA news agency.

The minister said that Moscow was ready to help mediate these negotiations.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that the latest UN sanctions against North Korea were an act of war and tantamount to a complete economic blockade against it.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions against North Korea on Friday in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says can reach anywhere on the US mainland. The resolution was drafted by the United States and negotiated with the North's closest ally, China.

North Korea said it is a "pipe dream" for the United States to think it will give up its nuclear weapons.

"We define this 'sanctions resolution' rigged up by the US and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region and categorically reject the 'resolution,'" North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

"If the US wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy towards the DPRK and learn to coexist with the country that has nuclear weapons and should wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons which we have developed and completed through all kinds of hardships," said the statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

DPRK is short for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

China called for restraint Monday, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying that nations should "make positive and constructive efforts to de-escalate tensions" on the Korean Peninsula.

Hua said the new UN resolution emphasizes "not inflicting adverse humanitarian impact" on North Koreans and not affecting regular economic activities or humanitarian assistance.

The resolution includes sharply lower limits on North Korea's refined oil imports, the return home of all North Koreans working overseas within 24 months, and a crackdown on ships smuggling banned items including coal and oil to and from the country.

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Pope Leo XIV Calls for Peace in Ukraine and Gaza

Pope Leo XIV waves as he delivers the Regina Caeli prayer from the main central loggia of St Peter's basilica in The Vatican, on May 11, 2025. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP)
Pope Leo XIV waves as he delivers the Regina Caeli prayer from the main central loggia of St Peter's basilica in The Vatican, on May 11, 2025. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP)
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Pope Leo XIV Calls for Peace in Ukraine and Gaza

Pope Leo XIV waves as he delivers the Regina Caeli prayer from the main central loggia of St Peter's basilica in The Vatican, on May 11, 2025. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP)
Pope Leo XIV waves as he delivers the Regina Caeli prayer from the main central loggia of St Peter's basilica in The Vatican, on May 11, 2025. (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP)

Pope Leo XIV called for a genuine and just peace in Ukraine and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, in his first Sunday noon blessing as pontiff.
“I, too, address the world's great powers by repeating the ever-present call ‘never again war,’” Leo said from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to an estimated 100,000 people below.
It was the first time that Leo had returned to the loggia since he first appeared to the world on Thursday evening following his remarkable election as pope, the first from the United States. Then, too, he delivered a message of peace.
Leo was picking up the papal tradition of offering a Sunday blessing at noon, but with some twists. Whereas his predecessors delivered the greeting from the studio window of the Apostolic Palace, off to the side of the piazza, Leo went to the very center of the square and the heart of the church.
He also offered a novelty by singing the Regina Caeli prayer, a Latin prayer said during the Easter season which recent popes would usually just recite, The Associated Press reported.
Traditionalists and conservatives, many of whom felt alienated by Pope Francis' reforms and loose liturgical style, have been looking for gestures hinting at Leo's priorities. Some have expressed cautious optimism at the very least with a return to a traditional style that Leo exhibited on Thursday night, when he wore the formal red cape of the papacy that Francis had eschewed.
On hand in the square on Sunday for Leo's first noon prayer were two of Europe's more firebrand conservatives, France's Marine Le Pen and Italy's Matteo Salvini. The Italian minister has highlighted his Catholic faith in his political messaging.
On Sunday Leo wore the simple white cassock of the papacy and had reverted back to wearing his silver pectoral cross. He had worn a more ornate one that contains the relics of St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica, on Thursday night that had been given to him by his Augustinian religious order.
‘Beloved Ukrainian people’ Leo quoted Pope Francis in denouncing the number of conflicts ravaging the globe today, saying it was a “third world war in pieces.”
“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people," he said. “Let everything possible be done to achieve genuine, just and lasting peace as soon as possible.”
He called for the release of war prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children to their families, and welcomed the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
He also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and for humanitarian relief to be provided to the “exhausted civilian population and all hostages be freed.”
Leo also noted that Sunday was Mother’s Day in many countries and wished all mothers, “including those in heaven” a Happy Mother’s Day.
The crowd, filled with marching bands in town for a special Jubilee weekend, erupted in cheers and music as the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica tolled.