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President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea speaks to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan on May 7 during the latter’s visit to South Korea. Behind them is a collection of vintage baseball memorabilia gifted to Yoon by US President Joe Biden. (courtesy of the presidential office)

North Korean state media lambasted this week’s visit to Seoul by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan, writing that Japan was “openly” endeavoring to involve itself in the Washington Declaration, which it described as “the most typical product of the heinous hostile policy toward the DPRK, which was devised by the US and south Korean rulers.”

An article attributed to Kim Sol-hwa, described as a researcher at the Institute for Japan Studies under North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ran in the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday under the title “What did Kishida’s visit to south Korea contribute to the security of Japan.”

In the article, Kim called the Washington Declaration “the most undisguised scenario for nuclear confrontation seriously threatening peace and security not only of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia but also in the rest of the world.”

Kim wrote that the South Korean president’s remark that Japan’s participation in the Washington Declaration wouldn’t be ruled out “represents the US sinister intention to establish the US-led ‘nuclear military alliance’ in Northeast Asia by setting up the ‘tripartite extended deterrence consultative group’ with Japan and south Korea.”

“If Japan persistently resorts to forming the US-led tripartite military alliance, turning its face away from the reality, it will plunge Northeast Asia into instability and finally turn it into a sea of flames, where it [Japan] will perish,” Kim threatened.

If Japan truly desires security, Kim wrote, “it would be wise to do things helpful to maintaining the stable relations with neighboring countries, away from its policy of kowtowing to the US.”

With the target of the piece being Japan’s Kishida, Kim did not make any mention of South Korea’s Yoon by name, only referring to him in strong language as the “south Korean chief executive,” who is “obsessed with sycophancy toward the US” and has “revealed his humiliating diplomacy toward the US.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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