Pressure on North Korea ‘will not abate’

Canada, U.S. discuss major January meeting

• Canada and the United States are discussing plans for a major meeting about North Korea in Vancouver next month, but key ally Japan doesn’t seem to have decided if it would be a good idea.

The planned summit, to be co- chaired by U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, was a major topic as the two met in Ottawa Tuesday.

“At this stage, we are not sure what kind of meeting it will be,” a Japanese official told the National Post on Monday, questioning whether the talks could result in anything much different than diplomatic efforts in the past.

“We have not made decisions.”

The meeting will be called the “United Nations Command Sending States Meeting,” according to a briefing by a U. S. State Department official Monday.

Countries that were members of the United Nations Command will be invited. The military grouping consisted of South Korea, the United States and 15 other countries, including Canada, that contributed to defending the south during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.

“The meeting of the Vancouver Group is going to be another visible sign that the international community is acting in concert to speak to the government of North Korea and to say this is threatening us all, and the pressure will increase until t he behaviour changes,” Freeland said in a joint press conference with Tillerson Tuesday.

“Having said that, we are confident that this campaign of international pressure will lead to the best outcome for the whole world, I think the only outcome for the whole world, which is a diplomatic path to a resolution to this crisis.”

Tillerson confirmed original Korean War sending states are invited as well as others including Japan, India and Sweden.

“What’s i mportant f or North Korea to know is that this pressure campaign will not abate, we will not be rolling any of it back, it will only intensify as time goes by,” he said.

Freeland’s press secretary, Adam Austen, said some invited nations have not yet responded, but “Japan and South Korea are in for sure.”

Japan has shown some reluctance, however.

Tillerson and Freeland first announced plans for such a meeting at the end of November. The Japan Times, Japan’s largest English- language newspaper, reported days later that the Canadians had been trying to set it up for as early as December, but Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono would not commit to anything before the end of the year.

The Japanese official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said Tillerson and Kono met on the margins of a United Nations Security Council meeting in New York last week.

Dialogue for the sake of dialogue is meaningless, from the Japanese point of view. The current strategy is to put enough pressure on North Korea through economic sanctions that it will be forced to seek some kind of deal.

Although Canada has not been a major player on the issue in the past, it is good that Canadians want to sit at the table and play a bigger role in dealing with North Korea, said the Japanese official.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been personally active on the file, recently meeting with Tillerson on the topic and suggesting to reporters last month that a back channel to North Korea could be established via Cuba.

While Japan has been within range of North Korean attacks for many years, now Canada is, too, as confirmed by intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

“The danger which Canada may feel will be more and more,” the official said. “Canada should be one of the main players.”