Japan’s leader backs Trump on North Korea

‘Dialogue was the best means of deceiving us and buying time,’ he told assembly.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, staunchly defended the Trump administration on North Korea, saying that now was not the time for dialogue.

“We consistently support the stance of the United States that all options are on the table” to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Abe said.

For North Korea, he said, “dialogue was the best means of deceiving us and buying time.”

Trump in his own U.N. speech Tuesday warned that the North Korea regime is courting destruction if it continues its aggressive actions, saying the U.S. would “totally destroy North Korea” if provoked.

“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” Trump said, using a nickname he has adopted for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In the past month, North Korea has twice fired test missiles over Japan. The Japanese have limited missile defenses, and the country’s position to the east of North Korea means that missiles fired by Pyongyang toward the United States or the U.S. territory of Guam almost certainly would have to fly over Japanese territory.

“Again and again, attempts to resolve the issue through dialogue have all come to nought,” Abe said.

He called Kim “a dictator” and said that “sooner or later” Kim would be able to deliver an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“North Korea is attempting to dismiss with a smirk efforts towards disarmament we have assiduously undertaken over the years,” Abe said. “The nonproliferation regime is about to suffer a serious blow from its most confident disrupter ever.”

Abe has been one of the international leaders most supportive of Trump, and after Trump’s inauguration was one of the first to visit him at the White House and at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida

In contrast to Abe’s support for Trump, leaders from around the globe gathered for the General Assembly began adding their signatures to a treaty that bans nuclear weapons, although the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries declined to sign it and denounced it as dangerously naive.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show that Trump’s speech may have put America in isolation and danger by further provoking Kim.

“You have to ask yourself: Is America safer because of ‘Rocket Man?’” he said.

Kerry said that kind of harsh language will make it harder for the United States to engage in diplomacy on North Korea and other international issues.