Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Saturday that North Korea remains a threat to global security, urging the international community to work closely to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Iwaya also criticized Pyongyang's recent firing of short-range ballistic missiles as being in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, while emphasizing that defense authorities should maintain deterrence against North Korea.
"We need to remind ourselves of the undeniable fact that there has been no essential change in North Korea's nuclear and missile capacities," Iwaya said in a speech at the Asia Security Summit, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.