UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Russian envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday urged the United States and South Korea to scale down their planned joint military exercises to cool down the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

"In my humble view, even the reduction ... in the scale of exercises, if not cancelled altogether, would help reduce those tensions (on the Korean Peninsula)," Vassily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.

On Aug. 5, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to tighten sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in response to its ballistic missile launches in July. Tension remained high after Pyongyang and Washington exchanged threats.

It is time to demonstrate that the parties are willing to move toward de-escalation, said Nebenzya. "We are saying to both sides that they should refrain from anything that would deteriorate the situation."

"We've heard and seen some reconciliatory language in the last couple of days and that's a good sign that it's cooling down," he commented.

He stressed the need for a political roadmap. "We are stressing there is a need for a political way out of it, we need a political roadmap."

For the time being, he said, there is only one roadmap on the table: the Russia-China joint proposal for dual suspension and for a peace and security architecture in Northeast Asia.

The Russia-China stance, issued on July 4, envisages parallel efforts to move forward both denuclearization and the establishment of a peaceful mechanism on the peninsula. It also includes China's initiative of suspension-for-suspension: DPRK's suspension of its nuclear and missile activities, and the United States and South Korea's suspension of their large-scale war games.