British PM Declares N. Korea`s Nuclear Weapons Development “Not Fantasy”

It is not fantasy that North Korea organizes terrorist groups and develops and exports weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned yesterday.

“Some countries are manufacturing WMDs and trying to export the technology and WMDs,” Blair, who is visiting the United States, pointed out in his speech during a joint session of Congress yesterday.

“North Korea lets its people starve while spending billions of dollars on developing nuclear weapons and exporting the technology abroad,” Blair said. “It isn`t fantasy, it is 21st-century reality, and it confronts us now,” he emphasized.

Blair said the world shouldn`t underestimate the danger of possible ties between terrorist organizations and countries that develop WMDs, while pointing out the links between Al-Queda and the Taleban regime of Afghanistan and Iraq government’s harboring and supporting terrorist groups when Saddam Hussein ruled the country.

The British prime minister also said that the most powerful weapons are ‘chaos and disorder’, and urged that “all nations such as the U.S. and Europe that are free and value freedom must unite and defend it absolutely.”

As for the leadership of the U.S., Blair note, “There never has been a time when the power of America was so necessary or so misunderstood. President George W. Bush`s Middle East Policy is tough but right.” “Europe must defeat anti-Americanism. We are not fighting for domination. That is what this struggle against terrorist groups or states is about,” Blair said.

maypole@donga.com