N. Korea ignores Japan until it scraps exercises

US to present timeline

SEOUL, June 25, (Agencies): North Korea will continue to ignore Japan unless Tokyo halts hostilities against its neighbour, such as largescale military drills and efforts to boost military readiness, the isolated nation’s state media said on Monday.

Japan has been eyeing prospects for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes to tackle the issue of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by the North.

Despite Kim’s summits with the leaders of China, South Korea and the United States in a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past year, no date has been set for one with Japan.

“If Japan does not correct its ambitions regarding peace and security, it should realise the end result where Japan is passed over will be inevitable,” North Korea’s state news agency said.

“Japan should stop its large-scale military drills and the boosting of its military capacity aimed at attacking (Korea), scrap its hostile policy against us, break with the past and show its sincerity towards peace,” it said in a commentary.

In 2002, North Korea admitted that it kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, and five returned home.

Abe, grappling with domestic scandals, has vowed not to rest until the others return as well, an issue he pressed US President Donald Trump to raise at his June 12 summit in Singapore with Kim.

The Korean Central News Agency made no mention of the abductees in its commentary, but scolded Abe’s government for not having scrapped an evacuation drill for Japanese sooner.

Japan started civilian evacuation drills last year as North Korea test-fired numerous missiles near, and over, some Japanese islands. Last week, Tokyo said it would suspend the drills for the time being after the Singapore summit.

Abe has called the summit a first step towards denuclearisation, while his officials have remained firm that Japan and the United States need to maintain guard against North Korea until it makes concrete efforts towards that.

Abe

Summit

In related news, the United States will soon present a timeline to North Korea with “specific asks” of Pyongyang after a historic summit between Trump and Kim, a senior US defense official said.

The official, who spoke to a small group of reporters ahead of a trip to Asia this week by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, did not specify details but suggested that the timeline would be rapid enough to make clear Pyongyang’s level of commitment.\ “We’ll know pretty soon if they’re going to operate in good faith or not,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“There will be specific asks and there will be a specific timeline when we present the North Koreans with our concept of what implementation of the summit agreement looks like.”

Trump has drawn some criticism from national security analysts for an agreement that emerged from his June 12 summit with Kim that had few details on how Pyongyang would surrender its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week he would likely travel back to North Korea “before too terribly long” to try to flesh out the summit commitments.

At the Singapore summit, the first meeting between a serving US president and a North Korean leader, Kim reaffirmed a commitment to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, while Trump said he would halt joint US-South Korean “war games.”

Mattis, at the start of a week-long trip that includes stops in China, South Korea and Japan, said Trump’s guidance on suspending military drills applied not just to the major Freedom Guardian exercise in August but also to two smaller Korean Marine Exchange Program training exercises.

Suspended

“The large, joint, combined exercises have been suspended . ... We’ll see if the continuing negotiations keep them that way,” Mattis said, adding that he was in frequent contact with Pompeo.

Mattis arrived on Sunday in Alaska, where he will visit Fort Greely and Eielson Air Force Base, before continuing to China.

His trip there from June 26-28 will be the first by a US defense secretary since 2014, and comes as Sino-US tensions have heightened over trade and China’s muscular military posture in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, in another sign of detente following the summit between Kim and Trump, North Korea has decided to skip one of the most symbolic and politically charged events of its calendar: the annual “anti-US imperialism” rally marking the start of the Korean War.

Fist-pumping, flag-waving and sloganshouting masses of Pyongyang residents normally assemble each year for the rally to kick off a month of anti-US, Korean War-focused events designed to strengthen nationalism and unity. It all culminates on July 27, which North Korea celebrates as a national holiday called the day of “Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War.”

Last year’s event was held in Kim Il Sung Square with a reported 100,000 people attending. North Korea even issued special anti-US postage stamps. Officials had no on-the-record comment on the decision not to hold the event this year. But Associated Press staff in the North Korean capital confirmed Monday that it would not be held.

North Korea has noticeably toned down its anti-Washington rhetoric over the past several months to create a more conciliatory atmosphere for the summit and avoid souring attempts by both sides to reduce tensions and increase dialogue.