An interesting prelude to the two talks at Chatham House this week…
A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK on Sunday issued the statement :
Japan has taken harsh actions against Chongryon and Koreans in Japan such as forcible search of its facilities and their houses, assaults and arrests of them last year and this year. Not content with this, it is working hard to force upon Chongryon the sale of the plottage and building of the Hall of its headquarters through the Resolution and Collection Corporation.
The Abe group instructed the corporation to raise an extremely discriminative and unfair demand to Chongryon, persistently turning down its sincere and reasonable proposals to redeem debts. It has thus unilaterally hamstrung Chongryon’s efforts for the solution of the problem.
Chongryon is a legitimate overseas compatriots organization of the DPRK whose mission is to protect the democratic national rights of the direct victims of the criminal drafting of Koreans by the Japanese imperialists in the past and the Koreans in Japan, their descendants.
Abe is now feeling uneasy about the steady decline of the support rate for him with the election to the House of Councilors slated to take place late in July.
The aim sought by Japan in chilling the efforts to bring about progress at the six-party talks designed to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula is to drag on the settlement of the problem in a bid to use it as a pretext till its militarization has become a reality.
As Japan is behaving so dastardly with a black-hearted intention, the DPRK cannot but raise a serious question as to whether there is any need for its continued participation in the six-party talks.
The DPRK will never remain a passive on-looker to the Abe group’s harsh suppression of Chongryon and its relevant field will take necessary steps against it.
Links:
And while on the subject of Japan / DPRK relations, a couple of recent news stories:
- Kim Is Squeezed as North Koreans in Japan Switch Citizenship, Bloomberg, 28 June 2007
- North Korean claims Japan kidnapped her, Joongang Daily, 27 June 2007
- Japan’s Next Spy Scandal, In From the Cold intelligence blog, 5 July 2007