Russia has always favoured a civilized way to settle all disputes, including the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, said President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
North Korea should not be cornered or intimidated, he said at a meeting of Russian thinktank Valdai Discussion Club here, although Russia condemns Pyongyang's nuclear tests and adheres to UN sanctions, Xinhua reported.
Whether someone likes or dislikes North Korea, it is a sovereign country, Putin noted, according to an official transcript of his speech.
"We are firmly convinced that even the most complex knots -- be it the crisis in Syria or Libya, the Korean Peninsula or Ukraine -- must be disentangled rather than cut," he said.
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