Japan calls for action on North Korea
The Japanese defence minister’s aggressive comments break with Jim Mattis’s call to ‘maintain stability and peace in support of the diplomats’
Clark Freeport Zone, Philippines — The threat from North Korea had grown to a "critical and imminent level" and the US, Japan and South Korea must address the matter, Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told his US and South Korean counterparts in talks on Monday. Onodera’s remarks underscored the deep concern in Tokyo after North Korean weapons tests, including test firing missiles over Japan, as Pyongyang seeks to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the US. His comments broke from more measured language on Monday by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korean Defence Minister Song Young-Moo, as the three men met on the sidelines of a gathering of Asian defence chiefs in the Philippines. "(The) threat posed by North Korea has grown to the unprecedented, critical and imminent level. Therefore, we have to take calibrated and different responses to meet with that level of threat," he said, speaking through a translator, at the start of talks in the Philipp...
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