North Korea: “U.S.-Japanese Economic Sanctions are a Declaration of War”

The North Korean Foreign Affairs Ministry stated on Tuesday that “there is a great possibility that the result of the DNA testing has been intentionally fabricated,” responding to the Japanese government’s announcement that the remains returned by North Korea recently did not belong to Japanese national Megumi Yokota, who had been abducted by the North Koreans. During the informal talks, the Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman stated that “the remains of Yokota had been directly handed over by her husband in response to the Japanese government representatives’ repeated, desperate pleas during their visit last month for the latest North Korea-Japan talks.”

The spokesman said, “It is impossible to think that the husband of Yokota handed over the remains of another person instead of his wife to Japan. One becomes doubtful whether Japan has come up with the fabricated result of DNA testing for political reasons.”

Furthermore, the spokesman asserted that “as soon as the DNA testing results was fabricated, both the U.S. and Japan proclaimed economic sanctions against North Korea. If the sanctions are exercised according to a scheme from the ultra-rightist powers, we will consider the action as a declaration of war and confront it in an intense physical manner.”

taewon_ha@donga.com