Japanese Prime Minister Abe, on a recent visit to several European countries to consult bilateral relations, picked a quarrel with the DPRK over its “nuclear and missile development” and abduction issues and viciously tried to involve these nations in cooperation for anti-DPRK pressure, a spokesman for the Institute of Japanese Studies of the DPRK Foreign Ministry told KCNA on January 18.

The statement came as the Abe clan pursues sanctions and pressure moves against the DPRK more persistently.

Abe said during the tour that “north Korea fired a ballistic missile whose range will cover even Vilnius and Belgrade”, “it poses a grave threat to Europe as a whole” and “they should put maximum pressure on north Korea to change its policy”, the spokesman said.

On a trip to the UAE and Canada, Foreign Minister Kono also said “north Korea is gaining time to continue its nuclear and missile programme” and “they should not turn their eyes away from north Korea’s ‘smiling diplomacy’,” and argued for pressure against it including the breakdown of diplomatic relations, he noted.

The Abe clan, he said, is now plunging the whole of Japan into a terror atmosphere by fabricating a “national crisis” at home while creating an anti-DPRK pressure atmosphere on the pretext of the DPRK’s self-defensive nuclear deterrent, in a desperate bid to revise the current constitution by all means and make Japan a state with the right of belligerency.

The clan still raises the already settled abduction issue here and there, he said, adding it is nothing more than a deceptive farce aimed at remaining in power for long and that the group would be held wholly accountable for all consequences.

It should be aware that the more crimes Japan commits against the Korean people without making reparations for those against humanity it had committed in the past by kidnapping millions of Koreans and imposing mental and physical sufferings on them, the heavier blow the DPRK will deal to it, he said.

“Abe is advised to see the changed strategic position of the DPRK squarely and switch his Korean policy,” he warned.