Abe bids for int’l ‘pressure’ to make NoKor abandon nuke program

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the international community must be able to “pressure” North Korea to get into a dialogue with nations and have the isolated state commit to abandoning its nuclear and missile programs.

At a press conference on Tuesday night, Abe said that “the leaders shared an unprecedented sense of crisis” with North Korea’s belligerence during the East Asia Summit (EAS).

“The international society should unity to fully implement the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) resolutions and ramp up pressure to the maximum level,” Abe said.

“We have to create a situation in which North Korea comes to us asking for a dialogue in exchange for changing their policies,” he also stressed.

Abe pressed for meaningful and proactive talks among nations when it comes to resolving the tensions created by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.

“With North Korea, we should not have dialogue for the sake of dialogue. It is meaningless; there has to be the commitment of North Korea abandoning the nuclear and missile programs in a full verifiable and irreversible method. We have to make them commit to that,” Abe pointed out.

North Korea has made a number of missile launches over Japan, the last of which was on September 15, which passed over the northern part of the Hokkaido Island.

The EAS is a meeting of the 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) with Japan, China, India, Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States, and Russia where leaders tackle security, economic, and geopolitical concerns.          /kga