June 15, 2018

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo, in response to some skepticism in Japan about the outcome of the recent U.S.-DPRK summit meeting such as "it lacks details or specifics", said, "Such a perception is a total misunderstanding of what took place."

Shii on June 14 held a press conference in the Diet building and said, "The two countries have mutually promised to work for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and security assurances, declaring the building of a lasting and stable peace regime. Any skeptical views are a gross misunderstanding of the historical significance of this point."

Given the history of mutual distrust long and deeply seated between Washington and Pyongyang, Shii said, "It's not possible for them to resolve everything in just one meeting."

Pointing out that U.S. President Trump said they are "going to start the process", Shii said, "Both leaders confirmed that they would swiftly bring the agreement into shape. The important thing is that all the countries concerned and the international community should help promote this process despite the difficulty and commit to cooperate until the process succeeds in achieving the aims."

Regarding the argument that "similar U.S.-N. Korea agreements in the past were all overturned", Shii pointed out that each of the past agreements had been made at the ambassadorial or ministerial levels.

He then said, "What is decisively different from those agreements is that this time the agreement was made between the top leaders of the two countries for the first time in history. We should celebrate this historical significance. Both states have made a very grave promise that they can no longer turn back on. I believe that the rest of the world should make efforts to have the Trump-Kim agreement bear fruit."

Past related articles:
> JCP welcomes historic US-North Korea summit June 13, 2018]
> JCP welcomes the historic inter-Korean summit and the Panmunjom Declaration [April 28, 2018]