JAPAN: Japan yesterday urged North Korea to reopen dialogue with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, a day after the agency declared the country in breach of atomic safeguards and sent the crisis to the UN Security Council.
In a statement issued by the foreign ministry, the Japanese government called on North Korea to take seriously the resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which urged North Korea to remedy its non-compliance.
"We hope that [North Korea] will immediately reopen talks with the IAEA and quickly make moves towards a rapid and verifiable dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme," it said, adding that Japan would work for a peaceful settlement.
The resolution from the IAEA's 35-nation government board said on Wednesday that the board would report North Korea's breach to the Security Council but stressed its desire for a peaceful resolution.
The head of the IAEA Dr Mohamad ElBaradei said nobody wanted the Security Council to aggravate the crisis by imposing economic sanctions, which North Korea has said would be a declaration of war.
"The message today is that we want to make use of the Security Council, to make use of all of the options available to the Security Council to find a diplomatic solution," he told a news conference."
A Japanese government spokesman said yesterday that whether sanctions were imposed would depend on North Korea.
"Whether sanctions are needed straight away depends on how North Korea thinks and deals with the current situation," Mr Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference.
The crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme has been simmering since October, when the US said North Korea admitted to pursuing a programme to enrich uranium. This violated a 1994 accord under which Pyongyang froze its nuclear programme in exchange for two nuclear power reactors and economic assistance.
Since then, North Korea has expelled IAEA inspectors, withdrawn from a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, restarted a nuclear complex capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium and threatened to resume missile tests.
- (Reuters)