Japan on Sunday criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for pronouncing that his country is a "responsible nuclear weapons state," arguing that he uses such rhetoric to simply justify the country's nuclear weapons development.
"North Korea needs to show efforts to remove the international community's unease through action," Masahiko Shibayama, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, told reporters in Tokyo.
Shibayama, a lawmaker of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, demanded that North Korea refrain from pushing ahead with further provocative acts such as a fifth nuclear test.