During Putin's exclusive interview with Mr. Shen Haixiong, the president of China Media Group, he commented on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. On the day of this interview, the Russian foreign minister was visiting the DPRK, where he held a brief meeting with the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. During those talks, Sergey Lavrov said that Russia hopes to see a peaceful, stable and prosperous Korean Peninsula and northeast Asia.

SHEN HAIXIONG, PRESIDENT CHINA MEDIA GROUP "Though the situation is still not very clear, there have been some positive changes this year in some international hotspots, such as the Korean Peninsula and Syria. What kind of role does Russia hope to play in solving international disputes? And what kind of cooperation can major powers, China and Russia, have?"

VLADIMIR PUTIN RUSSIAN PRESIDENT "On the DPRK issue, as our diplomats had said, our position on both sides is very close or completely consistent. It is the latter, to be exactly. We have put forward a roadmap to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue. The People's Republic of China has done a lot of work recently to ease regional tensions. We are pleased to see this and it will be fully supported.

As you know, the Russian foreign minister is visiting Pyongyang and holding talks with DPRK leaders.

We can also see that the DPRK leadership have made unprecedented efforts to ease tensions, which honestly surprised me. On one hand, they announced the suspension of missile tests and nuclear tests. Furthermore, they have dismantled one of the biggest nuclear sites. These are no doubt important steps to our final goal of denuclearization.

When DPRK leaders said they need an absolute security guarantee to reach the goal of denuclearization, I can understand. Is there any way else? Otherwise, we cannot imagine the consequences, especially after the tragedies in Libya and Iraq. All this has been visible before the DPRK's eyes. So it is self-evident that they want the guarantee. As for the content of the guarantee, and the time limit to carry it out, it is still hard to say. But what we can say and what we should say is that we need to take the road of easing the situation to achieve denuclearization.

It is regretful that our western companions, and regrettably South Korea, have not stopped drills and military actions, which go against easing the pressure. It is a wise and mature decision by US President Donald Trump to have direct contacts with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un. Anyway, I hope the planned summit can be held and we are looking forward to a positive outcome of the summit. I just mentioned the roadmap by China and Russia to resolve the DPRK issue, and the next step is to deepen relations among those countries who helped ease the Korean Peninsula situation.

The next step is that all countries who are interested, especially those in this region, can multilaterally participate in the formulation of a security guarantee. Of course, as I always suggested, and what we are currently doing is the negotiation of trilateral economic projects. Coming first are infrastructure projects.

We are talking about railway construction projects, such as the inter-Korean railway, which by the way, can also be joined by China. And also the building of natural gas pipelines, as well as other kinds of energy projects. There will be a lot of opportunities for trilateral or quadrilateral cooperation. What we need now is to push forward in this direction. We are all looking forward to the outcome of the dialogue between US President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un. And we will try our best to contribute to the success of the meeting."