▲ This undated EPA photo shows Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. (Yonhap)

N Korea-Japan

N. Korea warns Japan against forging military alliances as war criminal

SEOUL, Feb. 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korea warned Wednesday that Japan, a war criminal country, should not forge military alliances with foreign nations, slamming its recent expansion of defense equipment trade with Canada.

The Rodong Sinmun, the North's most widely read newspaper published by the ruling party, issued the warning, citing a recent equipment and technology transfer agreement between Japan and Canada aimed at laying the groundwork for exchanges of defense equipment and technology.

The newspaper accused Japan of "creating an environment favorable to realizing its ambitions of overseas invasion by strengthening military collusion with global powers."

The paper claimed signing military agreements, exchanging defense equipment and information, and staging joint military exercises between countries are possible only under military alliances, accusing Japan of effectively having such military alliances.

"It is not too much to say that Japan has practically established military alliances with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and many other countries," the Rodong Sinmun said.

As a war criminal country, Japan is prohibited from owning its own military, and therefore establishing military alliances is a "red line that should not be crossed," it said.

The newspaper, however, made no mention of the landslide win by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party in the recent parliamentary elections, a win expected to enable the party to follow through on its constitutional revision pledge to codify the status of the Self-Defense Forces.

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