Japan foreign minister and U.N. chief agree on need to keep North Korea sanctions

NAGASAKI - Foreign Minister Taro Kono and visiting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres agreed Thursday on the need to maintain sanctions against North Korea to prompt it to denuclearize.

Kono and Guterres also confirmed they will cooperate in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation toward the goal of creating a world free of nuclear weapons, according to the Foreign Ministry.

As Tokyo has been calling for U.N. reform, Kono expressed hope for further intergovernmental debate on the issue with the participation of all members, and voiced support for Guterres’ initiative to make the United Nations more efficient, a ministry official said.

Kono and Guterres also discussed the situation in the Middle East, climate change and the issue of Rohingya Muslim refugees who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar due to a military crackdown.

They held talks in Nagasaki, where Guterres became the first sitting U.N. chief to attend the city’s annual ceremony to mark the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing on Aug. 9.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

LATEST NATIONAL STORIES

Junichiro Koizumi: Maverick reformer left Japan all shook up

This is the last in a series on influential figures in the Heisei Era, which began in 1989 and will end when Emperor Akihito abdicates on April 30. In Heisei, Japan was roiled by economic exces...

Police can use wiretapping devices to decrypt and record at prefectural HQs across Japan from June

The National Police Agency revised wiretapping regulations Thursday, enabling investigators from June 1 to listen in on phone conversations while at headquarters of prefectural police departments w...

Body of Japanese victim of Sri Lanka Easter terror attack arrives at Narita

The body of a Japanese woman who was killed in a series of deadly bombings that hit Sri Lanka over the weekend arrived in Japan on Thursday accompanied by her injured husband and their two children...