After talking with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of an international summit in Vienna on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said North Korea is ready for direct talks and Russia is willing to help the two nations enter diplomatic discussions in order to decrease rising nuclear tensions and the threat of war.

“We spoke about the situation on the Korean peninsula,” Lavrov, told TASS, a Russian news agency, about his talks with Tillerson. “Our position on this matter is unchanged. We are confident that it the vicious spiral of confrontation and provocations must be stopped.”

“We know that North Korea wants first of all to speak with the United States about its security guarantees,” he added. “We are ready to support it. We are ready to help promote such talks.”

The State Department, however, seems unlikely to pursue the offer, and the department’s spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, told Reuters that direct talks with North Korea were “not on the table until they are willing to denuclearize.”

“It is something that Russia says it agrees with; it is something China has said it agrees with, and many other nations around the world as well,” Nauert claimed, adding that North Korea was “not showing any interest in sitting down and having any kind of serious conversations when they continue to fire off ballistic missiles.”

A spokesperson for Chinese Foreign Ministry emphasized the costs of war, and told Reuters: “We hope all relevant parties can maintain calm and restraint and take steps to alleviate tensions and not provoke each other…. The outbreak of war is not in any side’s interest. The ones that will suffer the most are ordinary people.”