It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

THE ASASHI SHIMBUN ON NORTH KOREA

With these possibilities, our options are necessarily limited to one: to encourage reform and opening North Korea to promote a regime change led by both moderate and hard-line policies that seek to prevent North Korean military adventure. We must, in short, diminish the prospect of danger from a dangerous nation and accelerate change in a less dangerous nation.

How is this to be accomplished?

It is important for Japan to refrain from adopting a policy of obstinate refusal to give up anything. Irrational emotions will not work in a diplomatic campaign that should have its objectives firmly grounded in the national interest.

North Korea should be looking to Washington, as it prepares for an attack against Iraq. President George W. Bush's administration is now insisting that the program to provide two light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea should be suspended. We urge the Americans to use caution and not push North Korea too far.

At the same time, international cooperation must extend beyond the relationship of Japan, the United States and South Korea. In a recent meeting, leaders of China and Russia issued a united call for the removal of all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, clearly criticizing North Korea for its nuclear program.

Koizumi should also ask China and Russia to increase their pressure on North Korea. Japan should also ask that Canada, Britain and other European nations that recognize North Korea diplomatically to cooperate in this campaign.