Kono urges all nations to sever ties with N. Korea

September 22, 2017

NEW YORK- Visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Thursday urged all countries to sever diplomatic and economic relations with North Korea in the wake of its recent series of provocations.

"We are now facing an unprecedented threat that is more grave and imminent to the security of the entire international community," he said in a speech, titled "Diplomacy in Creeping Crises," at Columbia University in New York, referring to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development programs.

Kono said, "Can you believe that over 160 countries have diplomatic ties with North Korea, the biggest threat to the world right now?"

Also noting that a number of countries still accept many workers from North Korea and maintain their economic ties with the nation, Kono said, "We have to urge those countries to cut off their diplomatic and economic relationships with North Korea."

Among its recent provocations, North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile in late August and another earlier this month, with both missiles passing over Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, before falling into the Pacific.

On Sept. 3, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, claiming that it successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb that can be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile. The nuclear test led the UN Security Council to adopt a new, powerful sanctions resolution against the reclusive country.

Kono called for the full implementation of the new and other relevant Security Council resolutions against North Korea. "Now is the time for the international community as a whole to maximize the pressure on North Korea to take concrete actions toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," he said.

As "the second challenge" to the world, Kono named the emergence of China as a global superpower.

"China is boosting its military capacity in a rapid and nontransparent manner" and "is flexing its muscle around the world," he pointed out.

But at the same time, Kono claimed that China and Japan, the second- and third-largest economies in the world, "should not confront each other," adding, "We should not allow 'tension' to dominate the entirety of Asia." Jiji Press