Russia considers Pyongyang's decision to launch a scientific rocket to place a satellite in earth orbit as disregarding UN Security Council resolutions , Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Tuesday.

North Korea plans to launch the satellite in mid-April in honor of the hundredth birthday of its founder, Kim Il-Sung. The United States, Japan and South Korea consider the launch as being in contravention of international obligations under UN Resolution 1718 and 1874, forbidding North Korea from carrying out ballistic missile test launches.

"We consider the decision by Pyongyang to carry out a launch of the satellite as an example of disregard for UN resolutions," Lukashevich said. "A way out of the situation should be found by political and diplomatic methods," he added.

The issue of Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs "will be seriously discussed" at a G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting in Washington on April 11-12, he said.

The Press Trust of India news agency quoted on Tuesday Pentagon spokesman George Little as saying the United States and South Korea would regard a missile launch by North Korea as a "serious provocation and a violation of North Korea's international obligations and standing UN Security Council Resolutions."

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discussed the issue with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan Jin, in a telephone conversation late on Monday, Little said.

Lukashevich also said Russia "considers the situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear program as alarming but not hopeless."

"We, naturally insist on Iran's full compliance with the UN Security Council, aimed at ruling out any possibility of Tehran's program being used for military activity," he said.

A meeting of the Group of Six international mediators on the Iranian nuclear program took place in Istanbul in January 2011 without result.

Source: RIA Novosti