TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) warned Japan on Wednesday that it would treat economic sanctions as a "declaration of war" and threatened to try to exclude Tokyo from six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear arms programs.
Calls are growing from the Japanese public and politicians for the government to impose sanctions on North Korea after Tokyo said bones Pyongyang had identified as those of Japanese it had kidnapped were from other people.
"If sanctions are applied against the DPRK (North Korea) due to the moves of the ultra-right forces (in Japan), we will regard it as a declaration of war against our country and promptly react to the action by an effective physical method," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo.
North Korea handed over the bones at talks in Pyongyang in November, saying they were the remains of Megumi Yokota and Kaoru Matsuki, two of 13 Japanese who Pyongyang has admitted abducting in the 1970s and 1980s to teach its spies about Japan.
Japan, which has no diplomatic ties with North Korea, lodged a protest with Pyongyang and demanded clarification on the fate of 10 Japanese who Tokyo believes were kidnapped. North Korea has said eight of the 10 are dead and two others unaccounted for.
North Korea's spokesman said it was "unimaginable" that the bones handed over by Yokota's North Korean husband were not hers.
The North admitted in 2002 to kidnapping the 13 Japanese, and Japan believes another two were also abducted.
Five have returned to Japan.
Pyongyang has said in the past that any imposition of sanctions by Japan would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
A hefty majority of Japanese citizens favor economic sanctions on North Korea, media polls have shown.
However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has taken a cautious stance, apparently for fear of jeopardising the six-party process.
"We must find out where their real intention lies," Koizumi told reporters when asked about North Korea's remarks.
OBSTACLE TO NUCLEAR TALKS
A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday that the six-party talks among the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia were unlikely to be held before President Bush (news - web sites) was sworn in for a second term on Jan. 20 and might be delayed until March, Japanese media reported.
South Korea (news - web sites), meanwhile, said that sanctions were not a good option.
"I would like to repeat that it is desirable to make real progress through peaceful dialogue by making North Korea join the dialogue table rather than sanctions or blockade," South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told a news conference.
North Korea's spokesman said Pyongyang might call for Japan to be excluded from the talks on its nuclear programs, which also involve the two Koreas, China, Russia and the United States.
"We will seriously reconsider the issue of taking part in the six-party talks together with Japan as long as such premeditated and provocative campaign of the ultra-right forces against the DPRK goes on," he said.
Three rounds of six-party talks have made little progress and a fourth round set for September did not materialize.
Pyongyang said on Monday it was seriously reconsidering its role in the talks because of what it sees as a concerted campaign to topple its ruling system.
The five regional powers are seeking to persuade the North to ditch its nuclear weapons ambitions in return for aid and security guarantees.
(Additional reporting by Reuters Television in Seoul)
Oh, please, PRETTY PLEASE, let NK make the first move on something. I, for one, would love for Kimmy to give the rest of the world an excuse to paste his ass.
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....DAAAARGH! Kim Jong-Il and tentacle sex in the same thought. OUT! OUT OF MY MIND!
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-'If you really want to fuck with these idiots tell them that there is a vaccine for chemtrails.'
White Haven wrote:Oh, please, PRETTY PLEASE, let NK make the first move on something. I, for one, would love for Kimmy to give the rest of the world an excuse to paste his ass.
As much as I like your enthusiasm I don't think the hundreds if not thousands of ROK civilians who would die in such a conflict share it.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Man, there's some people in North Korea just itching to get a fight started!
I expect, sooner or later, they'll find one - what I can't figure out is what they expect to gain from it. Then again, their leader isn't exactly dealing with a full deck, is he?
Broomstick wrote:Man, there's some people in North Korea just itching to get a fight started!
Perhaps the NK have been so thouroughly brainwashed that even the leadership starts to belive in the crap the Propaganda ministry is pumping out. Ultimately though I doubt the NK top is quite that crazy, starting a war will be the last thing they ever do and they have to know that.
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They're just talking shit, it's how NK runs diplomacy. They've done things like progressively modifying the chairs in the meeting room so that every day the US delegation would sit an inch lower, abruptly changing their entire negotiating team without telling anyone or even acknowledging that it had happened--that kind of crazy stuff. If Japan imposes the sanctions, Pyongyang won't do a damn thing to Japan. It's more likely that they're fishing for a good excuse to withdraw from the talks.
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I dabbled in this question in another thread. The losses of innocent people would be horrendous which is the major reason why diplomacy has to be exhausted.
If I was Bush though., (God what a thought) I would make a speech that very clearly stated that any physical force started by the North Koreans would result in all out war and they would be forced to surrender power the same as Afghanistan.
When it comes down to it, North Korea can't POSSIBLY think they could win a war with the States, let ALONE any willing coalition members.....
Maybe he should realize that the world can only be pushed so far.
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There's no way that the NKoreans would seriously start a shooting ar with Japan over economic sanctions. Japan needs to start doing something about the DPRK, though, and sooner rather than later.
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I expect, sooner or later, they'll find one - what I can't figure out is what they expect to gain from it. Then again, their leader isn't exactly dealing with a full deck, is he?
He's got littlemans' syndrome.
But lets face it, if anything happends to Japan, the whole world will glass NK.
I expect, sooner or later, they'll find one - what I can't figure out is what they expect to gain from it. Then again, their leader isn't exactly dealing with a full deck, is he?
He's got littlemans' syndrome.
But lets face it, if anything happends to Japan, the whole world will glass NK.
IIRC the USA is still responsible for Japan's defense. Any military action by NK will result in the desrtuction of NK by the US and the JSDF.
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
I expect, sooner or later, they'll find one - what I can't figure out is what they expect to gain from it. Then again, their leader isn't exactly dealing with a full deck, is he?
He's got littlemans' syndrome.
But lets face it, if anything happends to Japan, the whole world will glass NK.
IIRC the USA is still responsible for Japan's defense. Any military action by NK will result in the desrtuction of NK by the US and the JSDF.
Hmm. Here's my prediction on the matter:
The US will bomb their asses back to the stone age for the second time in fifty years. So, they'll rebuild and rename the reconstructed captital Pyongyang-3. Then, ten years down the road, they'll wonder why in the hell they're being attacked by giant creatures the Media dubs the Angels...
North Korea has declared every single military exercise ever held by US or South Korean forces (of which there have been hundreds) to be a declaration of war or an act of war. They have also used a great many other issues to make that statement. It's completely meaningless.
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Alyrium Denryle wrote:i would love to see the Japanese ally with the south Koreans... The US wouldnt even need to be involved, though it would only increase the OWNAGE...
I'm pretty sure that the Japanese Constitution forbids offensive military action by the JSDF.
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
Alyrium Denryle wrote:i would love to see the Japanese ally with the south Koreans... The US wouldnt even need to be involved, though it would only increase the OWNAGE...
I'm pretty sure that the Japanese Constitution forbids offensive military action by the JSDF.
Premptive defense.
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Thats one way to spin it. The Japanese people will never go for it though. They are very firm on the fact that Japan must never undertake any military action but defense, by the traditional definition.
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
Thats one way to spin it. The Japanese people will never go for it though. They are very firm on the fact that Japan must never undertake any military action but defense, by the traditional definition.
That idea is fading amongst the populace, though. Sure, the Prime Minister's decision to have troops in Iraq, even just a few, is wildly unpopular, but ten or twenty years ago it would have been totally unthinkable.
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HemlockGrey wrote:
That idea is fading amongst the populace, though. Sure, the Prime Minister's decision to have troops in Iraq, even just a few, is wildly unpopular, but ten or twenty years ago it would have been totally unthinkable.
Well in another 20 years they may be ready to participate in a NK smackdown. But by that time the problem may have rectified itself. Kim Jong Il will probably be dead by then anyways.
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M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
Thats one way to spin it. The Japanese people will never go for it though. They are very firm on the fact that Japan must never undertake any military action but defense, by the traditional definition.
Forget about the Japanese population, the South Koreans are the ones with the massive valid reasons to absolutely hate and despise the Japanese.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Sea Skimmer wrote:
Forget about the Japanese population, the South Koreans are the ones with the massive valid reasons to absolutely hate and despise the Japanese.
So they still condemn the Japanese for their actions in WWII? Despite the radical change in thinking that the population has undergone. I assume that the SK's wouldn't actually want Japan's help?
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
