Trump begins Asia tour from Japan, Abe & Trump call for more pressure on N Korea

Tokyo, Nov 6: US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today jointly called to put ‘maximum pressure’ on North Korea as time for dialogue with that country was over. South Korea has already slapped a new raft of unilateral sanctions against the dictator’s country.

Abe met visiting US President on Monday as Trump began his 12-day Asia tour of five nations with the maiden visit to Japan.

Trump’s visit coincides with the heightened tension in the Korean peninsula with North Korea dishing out threats of nuclear and hydrogen bombs against Japan and America. The US President’s visit is focused on trade and missile program of the Pyongyang.

According to Al Jazeera television, Abe said at a joint press conference that both the countries were in complete agreement about the measures to be taken against N Korea.

“There is no point in dialogue for the sake of dialogue with North Korea - now is the time not for dialogue, but for applying maximum level of pressure on North Korea,” Abe told reporters.

“We completely agreed that in order to make North Korea change their policy, Japan and the US must take leadership in closely collaborating with the international community so that we can enhance the pressure to the maximum level over North Korea through all possible means,” he added, while agreeing with Washington’s position that “all options are on the table”.

For his part, Trump, who has repeatedly made highly-combative remarks against North Korea in recent months, including calling leader Kim Jong-un “little rocket man” and “madman”, reiterated his stance that “the era of strategic patience with North Korea is over” and called it “a threat to the civilised world”.

“Some people said that my rhetoric is very strong, but look what has happened with very weak rhetoric over the last 25 years - look where we are right now,” Trump told the same press conference.