SEOUL: South Korea’s foreign minister will visit Japan this week to meet her Japanese counterpart, the foreign ministry said on Sunday, with Seoul and Tokyo seeking to boost cooperation over the handling of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The need to confront the threat posed by North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear tests comes despite lingering tension over the issue of sexual slavery during Japan’s wartime occupation of Korea.
Kang Kyung-wha will arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday and meet Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono during her two-day visit, her first trip to Japan as South Korea’s top diplomat, the foreign ministry in Seoul said in a statement.
“The two ministers will exchange views on issues of common interests focusing on bilateral relations and North Korea-related issues, including its nuclear program,” the ministry statement said.
South Korea and Japan are seeking to improve security cooperation over North Korea, but there have been conflicting signals over whether they can resolve a feud over “comfort women” who were forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels.
Ties have been frozen over the issue, with South Korean President Moon Jae-in has promising to renegotiate an unpopular 2015 pact signed with Japan.
Under that pact, Japan apologized again to former comfort women and promised 1 billion yen ($8.9 million) for a fund to help them. The two governments agreed the issue would be “irreversibly resolved” if both fulfilled their obligations.
North Korea threat on agenda when South Korean FM visits Japan
North Korea threat on agenda when South Korean FM visits Japan
US ‘totally stupid’ to attack Iran during talks: UN ambassador
- “War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents
- “Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression”
GENEVA: The United States made a “totally stupid decision” to attack Iran while in negotiations, and betrayed Gulf nations by trashing their diplomatic efforts, Tehran’s UN ambassador said Tuesday.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, insisted Tehran had no problem with its neighbors, but could not let US bases in the Gulf be used as launchpads for attacks on Iran.
“War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents.
“Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression.
“We will continue our defense until the point that this aggression is stopped,” he said.
On February 26, Washington and Tehran held indirect negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program — with the Omani mediators reporting “significant progress.”
Bahreini was present for part of those talks and said “everybody was optimistic” and the US team “agreed to continue negotiations” in Vienna this week.
But Bahreini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convinced US President Donald Trump to destroy diplomacy and attack Iran, with strikes starting on Saturday.
“It was a totally stupid decision. They will know in the future how stupid this decision has been. Both of them will understand, because Iran will firmly determine the situation and the destiny of this war,” he said.
“All our neighbors are now disappointed with the betrayal of the United States because everybody was working for diplomacy, particularly Oman.
“The US betrayed everybody.”
- ‘Not a regional war’ -
Tehran has launched strikes against countries in the region that host US bases.
“I cannot accept labelling what we are doing as reprisal. What we are doing is a kind of self-defense,” said Bahreini.
The ambassador said Iran’s problem was not with its neighbors, describing the Gulf countries as friends.
“We are in daily dialogue with our neighbors to convey to them the message that this war is not a war against our neighbors.
“This is not a regional war.
“But we cannot ignore the fact that the US bases in their lands are operational against us.
“In no way we can allow those bases to be used to make military operations against Iran.”
He said Iran’s operations were “exclusively” against US military targets, and said “there has been very serious order given to our military forces not to make any harm to civilians.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iranian leadership “want to talk” but Bahreini insisted no approach had been made to Washington, saying “there hasn’t been any contact from our side” since the war erupted.
