Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe has said North Korea’s offer of denuclearisation talks with the United States could be a ploy to play to buy time and stressed the need for Pyongyang to take concrete steps.
In his comments after a diplomatic breakthrough between North and South Korea, he said in Tokyo today that talks for the sake of talks are meaningless and the international community should never loosen sanctions just because North Korea is open to talks. He said North Korea has to show concrete actions toward denuclearisation by committing to abandoning its nuclear programme via complete, verifiable and irreversible means.
Japan, a close US ally in the region, is in the direct firing line of North Korean missiles and saw two fly over its territory in 2017, sparking outrage and taking tensions to fever pitch.Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi urged the United States and North Korea today to start talks as soon as possible. Cautioning that it is the crucial moment to test the sincerity of the parties to solve the nuclear issue, he said the Korean peninsula issue has finally taken an important step in the right direction.
