Johnson’s united approach call over N Korea
FOREIGN SECRETARY Boris Johnson has called for a united international approach to North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme as he headed to a summit starting in Canada today to discuss the crisis.
The two-day gathering in Vancouver will be attended by counterparts from the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea and other nations.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Johnson insisted sanctions against North Korea, also known as the DPRK, were biting.
“North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons programme is a threat to regional and global stability. The international community must be united in its approach.
“Sanctions are biting but we need to maintain diplomatic pressure on Kim Jong-un’s regime. I welcome this opportunity to discuss with like-minded partners how to increase the pressure on the DPRK to change course.”
The summit comes after officials from the two Koreas met to work out details about North Korea’s plan to send an art troupe to the South during next month’s Winter Olympics.
The rivals tried to follow up on the North’s recent agreement to cooperate in the Games in a conciliatory gesture following months of nuclear tensions.
In a development that still shows animosities, the North issued a veiled threat indicating it could cancel its plans to send an Olympic delegation to protest what it called South Korea’s “sordid acts of chilling” the prospect for inter-Korean reconciliation.
The warning is relatively milder than the North’s typical fiery rhetoric and it did not appear to put the recent signs of warming Korean ties in imminent danger. “They should know that train and bus carrying our delegation to the Olympics are still in Pyongyang,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. “The South Korean authorities had better ponder over what unfavourable results may be entailed by their impolite behaviour.”
The KCNA criticised South Korean President Moon Jae-in for crediting President Donald Trump for getting the North to sit down with the South.
Mr Trump has contended his tough stance helped persuade the North to hold talks. KCNA also accused South Korea of letting the United States deploy aircraft carriers and other strategic assets near the Korean Peninsula on the occasion of the Olympics. Monday’s talks at the border village of Panmunjom will likely focus on the make-up of an art troupe and when and where in South Korea they would perform, according to South Korean officials.
Drawing keen attention is whether the North would send its famous Moranbong Band, an all-female ensemble hand-picked by the North’s leader Kim Jongun. One of the North Korean delegates to the talks is Hyon Song Wol, the head of the Moranbong Band, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
Since its first stage debut in 2012, the band is hugely popular at home and has been dubbed by outsiders as “North Korea’s only girl group” for its Western-style performances.