Japan urges ASEAN, China, Seoul to step up pressure on North Korea.

(From BBC Monitoring International Reports)

Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Cebu, The Philippines, 11 January: Japan on Thursday [11 January] called on the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] plus China and South Korea to step up international pressure on North Korea in a bid to resolve the North Korean nuclear standoff and abduction issue, a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said. "I stressed in the two meetings that we should draw North Korea into resolving the issue by intensifying international pressure on it with a thorough implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions," Senior …