Japan Press Weekly

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2009 April 15 - 21 [NORTH KOREA]

JCP Kasai calls for joint international effort to have North Korea give up its nuclear program

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Kasai Akira said that the international community should join forces to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

On NHK’s “Sunday Debate” program aired on April 19, Kasai said that the U.N. Security Council’s presidential statement on North Korea's recent rocket launch is “rational and calm” because it expresses support for the Six-Party Talks and its early resumption and calls for a peaceful, comprehensive, and diplomatic settlement of the issue.

Komei Party member of the House of Councilors Yamaguchi Natsuo stated that strengthening Japan’s sanctions against North Korea “will be an effective way of putting pressure on the country and will create opportunity for dialogue.”

Kasai pointed out, “When the international community is attempting to have North Korea sit at the Six-Party Talks, recklessly strengthening sanctions will undermine chances for negotiations.” Referring to UNSC Resolution 1718 calling for any actions that could escalate tensions to be restrained, he cited a U.S. researcher’s statement pointing out that such action by Japan could turn the whole world against it.

Concerning Japan’s diplomacy toward the U.S., Kasai stressed the following two points:

One is that the Japan-U.S. agreement on relocating a part of the U.S. Marine Corps from Okinawa to Guam should be rejected because it requires Japan to pay 2.8 billion dollars for the construction of a U.S. military base on U.S. territory as well as pay the costs for the Guam relocation.

Kasai stressed that equal and fair relations should be established between the two countries instead.

The other is that Japan should take the initiative as the only A-bombed nation to take advantage U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent remark expressing that the U.S. will fulfill its moral responsibility as the only country that used nuclear weapons to work for a world without nuclear weapons.