YOKOHAMA -- A top government official has accused the North Korean regime of behaving like "gangsters" during a lecture he gave here. "I don't think you can have a healthy dialogue with somebody who smuggles drugs and abducts 13-year-old girls," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said at a Yokohama hall Saturday. "These are actions you'd expect from organized criminal gangs. There is no one in the world who believes that you can solve gangster troubles through dialogue."
| "Well, maybe the South Koreans. But nobody else. Except for the UN, of course..." |
Abe, who is one of the key men in the Koizumi Cabinet, warned Pyongyang that its blackmail tactics would not work. "They will gain nothing if they continue to do what they are doing now," the deputy chief Cabinet secretary said. Abe stressed that Japan should take a hard-line approach in dealing with the reclusive regime. "Time is on our side. The condition in North Korea is getting worse every single day. All we should do is to snub their blackmail tactics." |