Japan to halt missile evacuation drills following Trump-Kim summit in Singapore
Tokyo held its first evacuation drill in January and smaller Japanese towns and villages have conducted similar exercises as North Korea pushed ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programmes
Japan has decided to halt evacuation drills to prepare for a potential North Korean missile attack as tensions had eased following a historic summit between the leaders of the United States and North Korea.
US President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore last week and Kim committed to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, while Trump said he would end what he called “provocative” US-South Korean military exercises.
Japan welcomed the summit as a first step towards the denuclearisation of North Korea, but also said the US-South Korean exercises were a vital deterrent to North Korean threats.
North Korea last year launched two missiles that flew over Japan. It also conducted its sixth nuclear test.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga repeated that it was vital for North Korea to take concrete steps toward complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of all its weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
Suga noted, however, that North Korea has said it would not conduct tests and Kim had promised complete denuclearisation.