Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Moscow took a negative view of a U.S. call for all countries to cut ties with North Korea because of its ballistic missile programme, Russian news agencies reported.

Lavrov, speaking in Belarus, was responding after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Wednesday that all countries should sever all ties with Pyongyang, including cutting trade links and expelling North Korean workers.