North Korea Warns Japan Against Joining South Korea-US Nuclear Consultative Group

North Korea has warned Japan not to join the newly formed Nuclear Consultative Group by the United States and South Korea. Pyongyang has cited that joining the group would destabilize the region.

In an editorial, Kim Sol Hwa of the North Korean foreign ministry’s Institute for Japan Studies warned against Tokyo joining the group that was formed when South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol visited Washington last month. The NCG would give South Korea more input in its nuclear planning over any potential conflict with North Korea. Kim’s comments were aimed toward Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who visited South Korea on Sunday, the first bilateral trip in 12 years.

“If Japan persistently resorts to forming the US-led tripartite military alliance…it will plunge Northeast Asia into instability and finally turn it into a sea of flames where it will perish,” said Kim.

The NCG was part of the “Washington Declaration” during Yoon’s trip to the US. Yoon has recently said that the agreement has upgraded the alliance between South Korea and the US and that Japan is not ruled out from joining the NCG. The agreement also includes a pledge by South Korea not to pursue developing its own nuclear bombs, even as a recent poll showed that a majority wanted Seoul to acquire such weapons.

Japan and South Korea next month are set to agree on linking their radars through a US system to share information on North Korea’s missile program in real-time, according to a report by Reuters on Tuesday. The South Korean presidential office on Monday said the country would form a group with Japan and the US to share information about North Korea’s missiles, according to South Korea’s Yonhap.

On Monday, the United Nations Security Council negotiations on a US-led push to condemn Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missile launches seemed to have stalled as diplomats said China and Russia have stopped engaging. The council’s members have been discussing a statement drafted by the US that would have to be unanimously agreed to.

However, diplomats said both China and its mission to the UN initially proposed amendments to the draft statement but have since stopped engaging. A spokesperson for the Russian mission to the UN said Moscow has “always called for the situation on the Korean peninsula to be discussed in a constructive and comprehensive manner.”

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