Japan urges North Korea to restart nuclear talks
Date: 14-Feb-03
Country: JAPAN
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," the statement said.
The statement added that Japan would continue to work with other countries towards a peaceful settlement.
The crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme has been simmering since October, when Washington said Pyongyang 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Since then, North Korea has expelled IAEA inspectors, withdrawn from a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, restarted a nuclear complex capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium and threatened to resume missile tests.
Japan's top government spokesman said this week that the government was not in favour of sanctions against North Korea at this point.
