Tokyo: The Japanese government has informed the United States that it plans to maintain economic sanctions on North Korea in the foreseeable future, even if Washington is considering easing restrictive measures on the country based on the results of this week’s US-North Korea summit in Vietnam, local media reported on Tuesday, citing a Japanese government source.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are scheduled to meet in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi on Wednesday for a two-day summit. The Japanese government source told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper there was no guarantee that North Korea would take effective steps to achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula even if Trump and Kim reached such an agreement at the second summit. Therefore, Japanese working-level officials have informed the United States that “it was too soon to offer economic cooperation and humanitarian assistance” to North Korea, according to the newspaper. Moreover, Tokyo wants to maintain North Korea sanctions as a negotiating card during discussions on the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, the news outlet added.
On February 21, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo told NBC’s “Today” show that Washington would not move to ease economic sanctions on Pyongyang until it was confident that the nuclear threat from North Korea was significantly reduced. The first summit between Trump and Kim took place in Singapore last June. (Sputnik)
