Tokyo – American and Japanese diplomats agreed on Tuesday to maximize the pressure on North Korea to resolve tensions on its nuclear program, while citing the need to prepare for the worst if diplomacy fails.
US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, after meeting his Japanese counterpart, Shinsuke Sugiyama, journalists told the State Department is still on diplomacy to solve the problem and possibly denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
“However, we owe our allies in Japan and South Korea and elsewhere, being prepared in the worst if diplomacy fails,” he said. The United States must be ready to defend itself and defend itself and its allies, he said.
Sugiyama, information journalists separately, reiterated Japan’s support from President Donald Trump to keep all the options open, but underlined the need for a diplomatic solution by strengthening cooperation between Japan, the United States and South Korea, as well as by cooperation with China and Russia.
The two diplomats will join their South Korean counterpart in Seoul for new interviews on North Korea on Wednesday.
Read more: Rex Tillerson says he continues diplomacy with North Korea “until the first bomb”
Translections occur while the United States and South Korea have joint naval exercises this week. They regularly perform joint exercises, although North Korea condemns them as a repetition of invasion.
The deputy ambassador of North Korea in the United North North warned Monday that the situation on the peninsula “reached the point of contact and a nuclear war could break out at any time”.
Kim in Ryong told the United Nations General Assembly Disarmament Committee that North Korea was subject to a direct nuclear threat from the United States and has the right to have nuclear self-defense weapons.
He underlined military exercises and what he called an American plan to organize an “secret operation aimed at the withdrawal of our supreme leadership”.
Kim’s speech follows increasingly difficult UN sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his country restricts economic, scientific and others with North Korea in accordance with the United Nations sanctions, and the European Union has also announced new sanctions.
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