Stephen Biegun (left) with Kenji Kanasugi (right) met in Tokyo, after North Korea's projectile firing (Image via: The Japan Times)

Japan & US Meet, Post-North Korea’s Missiles

TOKYO - To prevent the worst case scenario amid North Korea projectile firing, Japan and US met to negotiate the means of prevention. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan and Director-General of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Kenji Kanasugi and US Ambassador for North Korea, Stephen Biegun met yesterday (8/5). They were holding negotiation in terms of prevention of nuclear weapon in the Korean peninsula.

The talks happened due to Shinzo Abe’s permission since he was ready to meet with the North Korean representative. Previously, he did not want to meet the representative, if it were not for abduction issue.

For the negotiation, Kanasugi was to deliver Abe’s thoughts concerning the projectile, while asking the US’ to help them with abduction issue.

This projectile firing is a series of conflict between North Korea and US about denuclearization. On Saturday (4/5), North Korea fired a projectile from its east coast Wonsan, due to the denuclearization talks with USA went nowhere. The previous projectile was fired 2 years ago and resulted in the same with the tension between North Korea and US.

After the February’s meeting between Donald Trump (POTUS) and Kim Jong-un in Vietnam, Trump confidently stated that the relation between the 2 countries is better than ever, signifying Kim Jong-un’s lack of will to test any ballistic projectile.

However, do not be deceived, the talks did not get anywhere, since they both came back empty-handed but still in touch, as US refused to lift the sanction off North Korea’s shoulder, if they still kept nuclear in their pockets. In turn, Kim Jong-un gave USA deadline to come up with a “reasonable term” not later than December this year.

South Korea, Japan, and US are feeling yellow, should North Korea have nuclear projectile in its armory. The fear was mutual because the expert estimated that there were around 30-60 nuclear warheads, capable of hitting US and level South Korea to ground.

Source: http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190508/p2g/00m/0fp/093000c