N. Korea biggest threat to Japan: defense minister http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-12-18T081704Z_01_T96759_RTRUKOC_0_US-JAPAN-DEFENCE-KOREA.xml
Mon Dec 18, 2006
By Isabel Reynolds
TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea is the biggest threat facing Japan, Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said on Monday, comparing the isolated communist state to Japan in the run-up to World War Two.
Kyuma, who took up his post in September, spoke as six-party talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program resumed in Beijing.
"Many countries including Russia and China have nuclear weapons, but those nations are capable of making logical decisions, so we can feel somewhat reassured," Kyuma told Reuters in an interview.
"One wonders whether deterrence will really work on North Korea, which makes us uneasy." Pyongyang spooked the region in October by testing a nuclear device, just months after test-firing a series of missiles in July.
North Korea has also angered Japan by abducting Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies in the language and customs of the country.
"From the viewpoint of other countries, it is like pre-war Japan. It is seen as a threat and we don't know what it is going to do next," Kyuma said.
Japan invaded and occupied much of Asia before and during World War Two, leading neighboring countries to look with suspicion at any political developments that suggest a drift away from its post-war pacifist constitution.
The outspoken Kyuma sparked a media fuss this month by saying he believed Japan's government had not officially supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq. He later withdrew this comment, but said that he personally had doubts about whether there had been a need for Japan's closest ally to go to war.
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