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Solberg & Abe puts pressure on North Korea

Abe Solberg North KoreaNorway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg meets with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Wednesday. | AFP-JIJI

Solberg and Abe will put pressure on North Korea’s leader

Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met Wednesday in Tokyo. The state leaders agreed to “maximize pressure” on North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

 

Japan Times reports this

– We confirm that we want to increase pressure on North Korea to make the country change its policy, says Abe, who wants to stop Kim Jong-uns nuclear and rocket ambitions.

Norway has diplomatic ties with North Korea. Japan has been among the countries that battle for increased sanctions against North Korea after the country has carried out a series of rocket launches in recent months.

Ambassador to the United Nation for USA, Nikki Haley, has previously stated that North Korea’s rocket tests “bring us closer to war”.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Japan and Norway also agrees to strengthen bilateral cooperation on the development of the Arctic region, according to Abe.

Worried about China

– We will work closely to maintain and strengthen an international order based on legal principles, says Abe, who is concerned about China’s expanding marine activities in the Arctic.

– We have also discussed how we can strengthen our trade relations, and I look forward to an economic partnership between our countries in the future, says Solberg.

Solberg says they “also discussed how we can further strengthen our trade relations, and I raised the issue of looking forward for an economic partnership agreement between our countries in the future.”

Norway is as most are aware not a member of the European Union with which Japan concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement in December.

Japan and the 28-member union are trying to implement in early 2019 an accord that will eliminate tariffs on more than 90 percent of products traded between them, which together account for about 30 percent of global economic output.

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today