Japan calls for UN talk on funding North Korean denuclearisation
Japan PM Shinzo Abe seeks to firm up commitments and details about paying to neutralise Pyongyang’s nuclear programme
The Japanese government is arranging a meeting, to be held during the United Nations General Assembly gathering in September in New York, to discuss how to share the financing of North Korea’s complete denuclearisation, government sources said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed readiness to support initial costs related to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, but Japan is also planning to provide other funds needed to neutralise Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities and transport its nuclear materials, according to the sources.
Abe also intends to propose a new international body to manage the funds provided by each country in collaboration with the United States and South Korea, the sources added.
Japan is seeking support from China, Russia and the European Union in addition to the United States and South Korea.
The plans apparently reflect Tokyo’s eagerness to take the lead in the denuclearisation process of the Korean peninsula, after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un vowed to do so in his meeting with US President Donald Trump last week in Singapore.