Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who built his career campaigning against North Korea, said on Friday the US should talk directly to Pyongyang if it helps solve the current crisis.
North Korea this week stormed out of six-nation disarmament talks and vowed to restart its nuclear program to protest a UN statement condemning it for test-firing a rocket over Japan.
The communist state has long sought bilateral talks with the US, which has held direct talks with Pyongyang but insisted that any deals come through the six-way talks launched in 2003.
The talks bring onboard Japan and South Korea — close US allies — along with China and Russia, seen as having some influence over the North.
“Japan is not opposed to the idea of direct talks between the United States and North Korea,” Abe told the Brookings Institution think tank on a visit to Washington, where he met US Vice President Joe Biden.
The conservative former prime minister said Japan’s priority was to end North Korea’s nuclear program and to resolve a row over Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s to train the regime’s spies.
“If there is anything that can contribute to the resolution of these issues, then we would be in favor of talks between North Korea and the United States,” Abe said.
But he warned that “the North Koreans like to play games.”
“The North Koreans may promise to talk to the United States and then later say, ‘Well, we’re not going to,’ and thereby try to get some reward,” Abe said.
Abe, who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and remains a lawmaker, rose to political prominence as an advocate for abductees’ families.
North Korea returned five kidnap victims in 2002 and says the rest are dead; Japan believes at least 12 more are alive.
Abe said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il must repatriate all abductees.
“To Kim Jong-il, I say this — Japan will simply never give in. Don’t play games with us as there is no room for compromise,” Abe said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of