Japanese PM warns of dangerous nuclear age

Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun held a summit today, with Abe calling for “harsh measures” against North Korea and warning of a “dangerous nuclear age” after its nuclear test.

“The development and possession of nuclear weapons by North Korea will in a major way transform the security environment in North Asia and we will be entering a new, dangerous nuclear age,” Abe said at a news conference after the one-hour summit in Seoul.

Abe arrived for the meeting, the first between the two neighbours in more than a year, just as North Korea claimed to have conducted the test, which would be the first incontestable proof that the isolated communist regime has nuclear capabilities.

“A North Korea with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles constitutes a grave threat,” Abe said. “Japan will now consider harsh measures.”

Abe said he instructed his government to seek consultations with the UN Security Council about pursuing stronger action. Japan is also considering what it can do by itself and what it can do in concert with the international community, he said.

He avoided specifics but said “we want a tough resolution from the Security Council".

Abe, who assumed office just two weeks ago, was in Seoul after a summit in China, where he and President Hu Jintao agreed that a test by North Korea would be “intolerable” and vowed to work to persuade Pyongyang to return to multilateral talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The reported test comes at a delicate time in East Asia.

Ties between Japan and its neighbours have been strained over visits to a Tokyo war shrine by Abe’s predecessor. At the first top-level summit between China and Japan in five years, Abe apologised for Japan’s past aggression and vowed to handle the shrine issue appropriately.

Abe repeated the views in Seoul, saying his country “caused tremendous suffering”.

Regarding the flashpoint issue of Tokyo’s Yasukuni war shrine, Abe said he would not comment on potential visits there because he didn’t want it to become a political issues. But he added, “I take the emotions of the Korean people seriously.”