Japan said yesterday it will maintain sanctions on North Korea until Pyongyang gives up nuclear weapons development, despite its willingness to resume disarmament talks.
"The most important thing is that North Korea abandon all nuclear development" in accordance with UN Security Council demands, said chief Cabinet secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the government's top spokesman.
"Until we know whether this will be carried out, we will calmly carry out what we have decided,'' he said, referring to sanctions imposed after the North's Oct. 9 nuclear test.
North Korea announced earlier yesterday that it would return to the six-party talks on its nuclear disarmament. The talks have been stalled for a year.
Later in the day South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in Moscow that the talks could resume this month, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The talks "may resume already in November, by the end of December at the latest," Ban said, according to ITAR-Tass.
Ban hailed Pyongyang's move as an "encouraging signal."
"I hope that we will find a solution to the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula," he was quoted by ITAR-Tass as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Ban during their Kremlin meeting earlier yesterday that Moscow was closely following the developments around the North's nuclear program, before reporters were whisked out of the room.
The Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed North Korea's announcement and called for the negotiations to resume as soon as possible. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow expects the talks to start shortly, adding that the date was still being discussed.
Japanese officials had also welcomed the North's announcement yesterday, but they said it was far from assured that the renewal of the talks would lead to the goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
"This is truly pleasing," Foreign Minister Taro Aso told parliament.
"However, given that we still don't know what conditions are involved, it's not a matter where we can now be saying `great, great, now we can celebrate,'" he said.
Japan, which is within reach of North Korean missiles, has taken a hard-line against the reclusive regime since the nuclear test, banning all trade with Pyongyang, barring North Korean ships from its ports and taking other punitive measures.
Over the past year, North Korea has refused to resume the talks, demanding that the US first lift financial sanctions aimed at the North's alleged money laundering and counterfeiting.
Japan's approach toward North Korea has hardened with the election in September of Shinzo Abe as prime minister.
Abe has long been a champion of Japanese kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2002, he was a lead negotiator in winning the release of five of the victims. Pyongyang has admitted kidnapping eight others, but has said they are dead.
Human rights activists in Tokyo said the abduction issue is just one of several North Korean abuses that is being overshadowed by the nuclear standoff.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS