TOKYO, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- North Korea continues to boycott six-party negotiations over its nuclear weapons program because its not yet starving, a former Japanese diplomat said.
Katsunari Suzuki, the former point man for Tokyo-Pyongyang relations, made the comment in an interview published Monday in The Japan Times.
"Kim Jong Ils administration has yet to starve (owing to economic assistance by China and South Korea)," he said. "That explains why North Korea doesn't show up at the six-party talks."
Publication of the interview came on the one-year anniversary mark of Pyongyang's boycott of the talks with Japan, the United States, Russia, South Korea and China over ending its nuclear programs.
The United States and Japan want hard-hitting international proscriptions imposed but China and South Korea - fearing the consequences of a North Korean economic collapse -- are opposed and have been helping the North with some aid, including badly needed humanitarian aid.
In July, in an act of defiance, North Korea tested more than a half-dozen ballistic missiles, including some theoretically capable of hitting Japan and one theoretically capable of hitting the western United States.
"North Korea's nuclear weapons and its development of (ballistic) missiles (to deliver them) have been the biggest threat to Japan," Suzuki said. "We should deal with these matters as priority matter."
Imposing sanctions, he said, was a "reasonable" course of action.
North Korean intransigence and the perceived threat it poses to Japan has helped spur Japanese cooperation with the United States on ballistic missile defense.
