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NATO Calls North Korea 'Global Threat'

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pictured before an interview with AFP at a hotel in Brussels on November 18, 2016 (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pictured before an interview with AFP at a hotel in Brussels on November 18, 2016 (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)
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NATO Calls North Korea 'Global Threat'

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pictured before an interview with AFP at a hotel in Brussels on November 18, 2016 (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pictured before an interview with AFP at a hotel in Brussels on November 18, 2016 (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called North Korea a "global threat" Monday and said he backed tighter sanctions against Pyongyang.

"We are as concerned as you are about the provocative, reckless behavior from North Korea," Stoltenberg said in a speech to a group of security experts and defense officials during a visit to Tokyo.

"It is really dangerous, it poses a direct threat to countries in this region (including) Japan, but it is also a global threat," he added.

Stoltenberg is in Tokyo to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other senior officials including Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera.

Pyongyang has sparked global alarm in recent months by conducting its sixth nuclear test and test-launching missiles capable of reaching the US mainland, while US president Donald Trump and the North's young ruler Kim Jong-Un have traded threats of war and personal insults.

It fired two projectiles over northern Japan in less than a month, ringing alarm bells in Tokyo as Abe called for a get-tough approach towards Pyongyang.

"NATO strongly support political, diplomatic, economic pressure on North Korea and we welcome the strengthening of the sanctions" adopted by the UN Security Council in September, Stoltenberg said.

"But even more important, we need to be sure that the sanctions are fully and transparently implemented," he added.

Stoltenberg's visit comes after Abe met with him in Brussels in July to agree on boosting security cooperation.

Stoltenberg has stressed that Washington had the right to defend itself and its allies but called for greater diplomatic efforts.

"We don't have to use military force -- peaceful resolution is the aim," he said Monday.

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US Waving a ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy at Iran

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)
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US Waving a ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy at Iran

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave Iran a choice between focusing on itself and on trying to build a better country for its people, or bear the consequences of continuing its engagement in what he called “misadventures” throughout the region and beyond.
During a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, the outgoing Secretary of State reflected on the carrot-and-stick policy that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump could adopt towards Iran.
He said there is a prospect of negotiations with Tehran to reach a new nuclear deal. However, he urged the policy of continued pressure on Iranian authorities to stop their nuclear policies in the Middle East.
Asked about the possibility of Iran accelerating its nuclear program in light of its failures in various parts of the Middle East, notably after Tehran lost its primary proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and after the fall of the regime of its ally Assad, Blinken said “There’s no doubt this has not been a good year for Iran.”
He noted that Iran has to make some fundamental choices.
One choice, Blinken said, “is to focus on itself and focus on trying to build a better, more successful country that delivers for its people, which is clearly what most Iranians want, and to stop getting involved in these adventures – or misadventures – throughout the region and beyond.”
The outgoing Secretary of State also affirmed that Iran desperately needs to be focused on its economy, on growing the country, and delivering for people.
If they don’t make that choice, he said, “they have some hard decisions to make, yes, about where they’re going to go in the future to be able to sustain the kind of troublemaking that, unfortunately, they’ve been engaged in for many, many years.”
Blinken said he doesn’t think that a nuclear weapon is inevitable.
“I think this is something that may be more a question now because as they’ve lost different tools, as they’ve lost different lines of defense, sure, you’re going to see more thinking about that.”
He warned the costs and consequences to Iran for pursuing that route would be severe. “So I am hopeful that that remains in check,” he said.
Blinken then reiterated the position of President Joe Biden’s administration, saying that the so-called JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, was capable to take off the prospect of Iran getting to a nuclear weapon anytime soon by bottling up, tying up the fissile material, making sure their breakout time in producing enough fissile material for a bomb was pushed back beyond a year.
He said now that breakout time in terms of the production of fissile material is a matter of a week or two.
“They don’t have a weapon, and the weaponization piece would take them some time,” he added.
The Secretary of State then called on the next administration to find a way to engage this, because the production of 60 percent enriched uranium gives them the capacity, at least in terms of fissile material, to produce multiple weapons’ worth of material in very short order.
Asked about the prospect of a negotiation of a new nuclear deal with Iran, Blinken said there is the prospect of negotiations.
“Of course, it depends on what Iran chooses to do and whether it chooses to engage in meaningfully,” he said. “And of course, the incoming administration will have to make a decision.”
He recalled how President Trump last time around pulled out of the deal, and wanted, as he called it, a better, stronger deal. “Fine. Let’s see what’s possible,” Blinken said.
He then revealed that from administration to administration, whether it’s the Biden, the Trump or the Obama administration, there’s been a shared determination and a shared determination that remains to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
Huge Opportunity
Blinken’s comments came shortly after White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Iran is at its “weakest point in decades,” after the fracturing of the Axis of Resistance.
The advisor also spoke about the huge opportunity” to advance regional integration.
At an event in New York, he said recent events in the Middle East — including the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the toppling of Bashar Assad in Syria — present a “huge opportunity” to advance regional integration.
When asked about efforts to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Sullivan affirmed that Saudi leaders have already said in recent months that a deal cannot move forward without a commitment by Israel to the creation of a Palestinian state.