On Tuesday, Russia and China joined diplomatic forces and called on North Korea, South Korea, and the United States to sign up to a Chinese de-escalation plan that is designed to defuse tensions around North Korea’s missile program, Reuters reports.

The de-escalation plan features North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program and the United States and South Korea temporarily halt large-scale missile exercises. This was set out in a joint statement from the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries, the statement read; “The situation in the region affects the national interests of both countries,” “Russia and China will work in close coordination to advance a solution to the complex problem of the Korean Peninsula in every possible way”.

This comes after North Korea’s announcement, Tuesday that it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time, which flew in a way that could allow a weapon to hit the U.S. state of Alaska.

According to Reuters, Moscow and Beijing used the same joint declaration to communicate to Washington to stop its THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, a move Washington says is necessitated by the North Korean missile threat.

The statement said, “The deployment … of THAAD will cause serious harm to the strategic security interests of regional states, including Russia and China. Russia and China oppose the deployment of such systems and call on the relevant countries to immediately halt and cancel the process of deployment.”

Itunuoluwa