Foreign Minister Taro Kono plans to call for international cooperation in ratcheting up pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, at an international security conference next month in Germany, a government source has said.
Kono is expected to deliver a speech to that effect at the Munich Security Conference to be held for three days from Feb. 16, the source said Saturday. Ministers and senior military personnel, mainly from NATO member countries, will attend the meeting.
When Kono's predecessor, Fumio Kishida, attended the Munich conference in 2014, he stressed in his speech the importance of promoting cooperation among Japan, the United States and European nations to bolster efforts maintain the maritime rules-based order, an effort widely seen as an attempt to halt China's growing military assertiveness.