Germany gives Japan its backing as N Korea tensions rise
Japan can count on German solidarity in the face of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Tuesday, as North Korea stepped up its saber-rattling. - “There is a clear message from the government of our country… that Japan can count on solidarity and other peaceful countries can count on that solidarity,” Westerwelle told journalists in The Hague. “It is very important that we send a clear message,” Westerwelle said at the end of a meeting of officials from the 10-country Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI) bloc. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters the world needed to send a “very strong message” to Pyongyang that it should urge restraint “rather than repeat violent rhetoric.”
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