WAR.WIRE
US removal of NKorea from terror list angers Japan
WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (AFP) Oct 15, 2008
The US decision to remove nuclear-armed North Korea from a terrorist blacklist has angered key Asian ally Japan and may stoke sentiment in Tokyo for developing its own atomic weapons capability, US experts warn.
Japan is angry that North Korea was removed from the US state sponsors of terrorism list last week despite Pyongyang's refusal to fully account for the fate of Japanese civilians it kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s.
Despite telephone reassurances by US President George W. Bush, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso publicly criticized the move and has vowed against providing any aid to North Korea unless the abductee issue was resolved.
Japan's main opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa said the half century Japan-US alliance "isn't really an alliance."
"Clearly, Tokyo feels abandoned on what it sees as its primary foreign policy objective -- progress on the abductee issue," said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA officer who monitored North Korean issues.
Klingner, now an Asian expert at the Heritage Foundation, charged that Washington had reneged its promise of stronger US support on resolving Japan's abductee concerns, including a "personal commitment" by Bush to then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
John Bolton, a former Bush State Department diplomat, warned that sidelining Japan in what appeared to be rush to seal a deal with North Korea before Bush left office in January could be detrimental.
"The consequences could well be detrimental to both Washington and Beijing, however, if Japanese sentiment for developing its own independent nuclear-weapons capability continues to rise," he said.
"This could occur as Tokyo sees the North Korean nuclear threat persisting, and as China continues to upgrade and expand its strategic nuclear forces and blue-water navy," said Bolton, a vocal critic of a six-nation diplomatic drive led by China and the United States aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.
Under the six-party deal, involving also Japan, the two Koreas and Russia, Pyongyang had shut down its key nuclear reactor complex and nearly completed disabling it.
Recently it threatened to reverse the process if Washington refused to delist it from the terror blacklist, ejecting international inspectors from the previously locked-down nuclear facility and staging missile tests.
The tensions also raised some concerns North Korea would stage another nuclear weapons test.
"It depends on how seriously you take the brinkmanship," said former State Department diplomat Richard Bush, highlighting the need to assess the bilateral tensions from both the American and Japanese perspectives.
"Was North Korea moving towards testing another devise? What would have been the Japanese reaction then? There were reports the North Koreans were headed in that direction, consistent with their negotiating behavior," he said.
"Some might say we shouldn't be willing to play that game but there would have been cost if they had gone down that road," said Bush, the Asian research head at Brookings Institution.
Japan and another key US ally South Korea obviously are on the front line of any nuclear attack by North Korea, which in 1998 test-launched a long-range Taepodong-1 missile which overflew Japan and sparked alarm in Tokyo.
The United States had in the past sought to reassure the two allies of a "nuclear umbrella" in the event of any possible North Korean attack.
"Fears that the US nuclear umbrella is no longer reliable will only add to Japan's concerns," Bolton said.
Though South Korea was publicly supportive of the North's delisting, some government officials have privately said that they were "distressed by the US action," Klingner said.
US State Department officials held talks with their counterparts from Japan and South Korea in Washington Tuesday in what appeared to be further US reassurances to the two allies.
The White House also Tuesday urged North Korea to work with Tokyo to end the dispute over the Japanese abductions.
"We want Japan and the DPRK (North Korea) to continue to work on this issue together. The DPRK needs to honor its commitments to Japan and provide them resolution on this issue," said national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said
