Brussels, 11/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - Meeting Commission President José Manuel Barroso in Brussels on Thursday afternoon in the context of a one-week visit to Europe, the Japanese prime minister, Sinzo Abe, called on the Union for a “concerted effort” on the North Korean nuclear issue to encourage Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programme and its missiles. “The nuclear missile issues are a great challenge to the non-proliferation regime and a concerted effort in solidarity of the international community is needed to resolve these issues”, he told the press after the meeting. He went on to say: “President Barroso expressed his support and we confirmed that we shall cooperate with all these issues further in the days ahead”. The announcement of the first North Korean atomic bomb test on 9 October 2006 had provoked unanimous condemnation from the Union, the international community and the UN Security Council. Since then, Pyongyang has agreed to return to the six-party talks (North Korea, South Korea, China, United States, Japan and Russia) on its nuclear military arsenal, but the last discussion session in Beijing last December did not take matters further forward.
In addition to international issues (Iraq and Middle East in particular), security in the Asia-Pacific region was at the top of the discussion agenda, with Barroso and Abe also tackling the matter of lifting the arms embargo against China. The Nippon prime minister reaffirmed Tokyo's objection to this. “I stated Japan's position which is opposition to the lifting of the arms embargo on China and I believe I gained President Barroso's understanding on this point”, he said. Barroso, for his part, simply pointed out that the EU27 have agreed to work towards lifting the embargo but that “further technical work is necessary” before a decision can be taken. “The EU has clearly stated that such a measure when it happens would not lead to a quantitative or qualitative increase in arms sales” to China, he concluded.
Barroso and Abe also held an exchange of views on the Doha round of talks and the climate change dossier. On this last point, they discussed ways to involve some of the countries that are mainly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions (Australia, China, United States and India in particular) in an international framework for emissions reduction. Barroso seized this opportunity to reveal his proposed energy policy for Europe which is based on a 30% target in emissions reduction for developed countries by 2020. (eh)