Arab News Japan

TOKYO: North Korea on Monday issued a statement in response to Japan’s release of its 2023 Diplomatic Bluebook, which, it said, shows Japan’s “hostile stance” as well as “its dark ulterior motives full of fraud and deceit.”

North Korea’s statement came from the Director of the Policy Office of the Japanese Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, in its Diplomatic Bluebook, accuses our self-defense strengthening measures of being a ‘challenge to the international community’ and a ‘threat to peace and security,’ and calls for the ‘implementation of the resolutions’ of the United Nations Security Council, which havealready been resolved,” the North’s statement said.

“Japan, which actively follows the reckless military threats of the United States and South Korea and tries to realize its extremely dangerous ambition to become a ‘military power’, talks incoherently about our self-defensive war deterrence. This is a challenge to our sovereignty and interference in our internal affairs.”

The North said Japan’s diplomatic bluebook is being “denounced” by neighboring countries and the international community. It also criticized Japan for continuing to raise the issue of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens, which, it says, “has already been resolved.”

The statement concludes: “Despite inflicting unspeakable misfortune and suffering on the Korean people in the 20th century, Japan, which has not honestly cleared its own guilt, now actively follows the United States and engages in hostile acts against the Republic at all costs.”