The law passed January 29 would give Tokyo the power to stop transfers of money and goods to the DPRK. The London-based Guardian noted that although the legislation covers “any country seen as a threat to Japan’s ‘peace and stability’…few doubt that North Korea is the prime target.” The bill is likely to be approved by Japan’s upper house of parliament too, according to the Guardian.

The bill will threaten “peace and security on the Korean peninsula and escalate military tension in the region,” responded the DPRK government, according to the official Korean News Agency.

A few days later Washington and Pyongyang announced that they will meet at the end of February for talks in Beijing. Also present will be government representatives of Japan, south Korea, China, and Russia. During the negotiations the U.S. government will pressure Pyongyang to do away with its nuclear weapons program.

“We’re looking for a round that can move toward the goals of verifiable elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs,” said Richard Boucher, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, making it clear that Washington wants to see concessions from the DPRK, and that he expects a similar stance from other negotiators.

Allegations and threats toward north Korea have been at the center of the recent revelations about the alleged sale of nuclear weapons secrets by Pakistani scientists. U.S. officials and their Pakistani counterparts claim that north Korea, Iran, and Libya were the most important purchasers of Pakistani technology, and that the DPRK in turn provided ballistic missile technology to Pakistan.

The Associated Press reported February 11 that Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had promised to “share information on black market deals that allegedly moved nuclear know-how to North Korea, data that could give other countries a better idea of the communist nation’s atomic arsenal.”

Musharraf said that the information would be handed to Tokyo, Korea’s former colonial master.
 
 
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