North Korea should cancel 'rocket' launch plan: Shii

December 2, 2012

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on December 1 issued a statement in protest against North Korea's plan to launch a long-range rocket between December 10 and 22, urging the nation to cancel the plan.

Text of the statement is as follows:

The government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea announced that it will launch an "application satellite" during the period from 10 to 22 April. This launch will follow its April launch, which international society strongly condemned.

The Japanese Communist Party strongly protests the DPRK's taking another action which would promote the deterioration of the regional situation and urges it to cancel the launch plan.

The Security Council, in its resolution 1874 (passed in June 2009), demanded that the DPRK not conduct any further ballistic missile launch or "any launch using ballistic missile technology" including that of a satellite. The United Nations so decided because the DPRK had already gone ahead with two nuclear test explosions in serious violation of previous resolutions.

The DPRK justification for launching a satellite that it is exercising "the independent right to use space recognized by the universally accepted international law" does not hold up under scrutiny.

The JCP urges the DPRK to abide by the relevant UNSC resolutions and return to the 2002 Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration as well as the Six-Party Talks joint statement issued in 2005. The JCP also calls on the international community to make concerted diplomatic efforts to restrain the DPRK strictly through non-military and diplomatic means.