Japan Expands Sanctions Against North Korea Over Recent Ballistic Missile Launches

Oct. 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Government of Japan has imposed additional sanctions on North Korea by freezing the assets of five organizations for their relationship with the escalation of tensions in the region after the increase in missile launches by Pyongyang.

The Japanese government spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, explained that the sanctions were approved at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, in response to the North Korean test launches of ballistic missiles into the East Sea — between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago– from the end of September.

These practices of Pyongyang are “serious and imminent threats” to the security of the country, such “reckless actions” threaten international peace and stability, so they are “absolutely intolerable”, Matsuno explained in statements collected by the newspaper ‘Japan Times ‘.

“Japan urges North Korea to take concrete steps to resolve various problems,” including its nuclear and missile development programs, as well as its previous kidnappings of Japanese citizens, the government spokesman requested.

Matsuno has thus made reference to the kidnapping of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. These facts “are one of the main challenges facing the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida,” he added.

Japan thus joins the measures of South Korea, which last Friday added 15 people and 16 institutions to its ‘black list’, these regulations were the first unilateral sanctions in five years.

The sanctions come as tensions in the region have risen after North Korea has stepped up ballistic missile launches in recent weeks, raising concerns about a possible nuclear test.

These tests are prohibited by UN Security Council resolutions. However, Pyongyang justifies its action in response to the US-South Korean military maneuvers that it considers an invasion rehearsal.

In the early hours of October 4, Pyongyang launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over Japanese territory to fall into the Pacific Ocean, outside Japanese airspace, an event that had not happened since 2017.