South Korea yesterday warned North Korea against conducting any nuclear tests, saying they would further isolate Pyongyang and undermine its security, while the US said the North's resistance to international disarmament talks was unacceptable.
Concerns that the North is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal have escalated after it apparently shut down a nuclear reactor recently -- a move that could allow it to harvest weapons-grade plutonium.
"If North Korea takes a measure of recklessly conducting a nuclear test, that will further isolate North Korea, and North Korea will be going on a road that cannot have its future guaranteed," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in a speech yesterday in Seoul.
"Nuclear weapons can never guarantee North Korea's security, and will only bring about and worsen the isolation of its politics and economy," Ban said, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The warning came after some US media reported over the weekend that Pyongyang might be preparing for its first nuclear test.
Moon Hee-sang, chairman of the ruling Uri Party, played down those reports, saying yesterday that he was not aware of any signs that the North will conduct a nuclear test.
The top US envoy on the North Korean nuclear issue met with South Korean officials yesterday and discussed ways to revive stalled, six-nation disarmament talks.
"What we are focusing on is the diplomatic track and the need to get the talks going, and more importantly, once they get going, to achieve progress in the talks," Christopher Hill, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said following his meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Song Min-soon.
"We need to be very clear that it is not acceptable for [the North] to be staying out of the talks," he said.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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