President Moon Jae-in spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin for 20 minutes from 11:30 tonight. They discussed how to respond to North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, its most serious provocation thus far.

President Moon began by saying that the North Korean nuclear issue should be resolved peacefully through diplomatic measures. To that end, he continued to stress, the North must not carry out any additional provocation.

Noting that the test this time was a complete departure from previous tests in terms of its scale and nature, President Moon said that it was all the more worrisome that the North bragged about the test of a hydrogen bomb to be mounted on an ICBM. The President next emphasized that it was high time for the U.N. Security Council to seriously consider ways to cut off oil supplies to the North and fundamentally block its sources of foreign currency, including a ban on the importation of laborers from North Korea.

President Putin who was attending the BRICS Summit held in Xiamen, China, said North Korea’s nuclear and missile program was destroying the international non-proliferation regime and becoming an actual threat to regional peace and stability. The Russian President also said a joint statement denouncing North Korea’s sixth nuclear test was adopted at the summit.

President Putin said the joint statement stated that the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula should be solved only through diplomatic means and suggested that the two leaders have further discussions on the issue at their summit in Vladivostok on September 6.