Russia will seek areas in economic cooperation with North Korea that are not limited to UN sanctions, said Speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament Valentina Matvienko.

"We openly told our North Korean partners that we can not break sanctions, we can not violate the sanctions regime in those areas where sanctions are sanctioned by the UN sanctions committee," she said.

According to her, those sanctions that are imposed unilaterally are certainly illegitimate, but they exist, and many companies and countries are afraid of violating them, RIA Novosti reported.

“We will seek those directions, those areas that are not prohibited from cooperation by imposing sanctions,” Matvienko told reporters on Saturday.