AFP
Friday, January 26, 2007
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday that Japan will never
tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Abe, who built his career as a hardliner on North Korea, spoke
ahead of the expected resumption of six-nation talks on ending
the communist state's nuclear arsenal.
"Our country will never tolerate North Korea's nuclear weapons
development," Abe said in a policy speech to parliament.
"With a policy of pressure and dialogue, we will cooperate
with the countries concerned to seek a concrete response from
North Korea," he said.
North Korea tested its first atom bomb on October 9, days after
Abe took office with a conservative agenda including revising
the post-World War II pacifist constitution.
Abe, despite his calls for a more assertive Japan, said the country
was cooperating with the United States to build a missile defense
shield.
"By cooperating with the United States, we will work to
hurriedly set up a system to protect our country from ballistic
missiles," Abe said.
Japan feels a direct threat from North Korea, which fired a missile
over its main island in 1998, prompting Tokyo and Washington to
team up to build a missile defense shield.
The US military also installed Patriot surface-to-air missiles
in Japan after North Korea test-fired missiles in July.
Abe rose to prominence campaigning against North Korea for its
abductions of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train
its spies. Japan insists that some of them are alive and kept
under wraps in North Korea.
"Normalization of ties between Japan and North Korea cannot
be realized without the resolution of the abduction issue. We
will strongly demand North Korea let all the abductees return
home swiftly," Abe said.
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