(RIA Novosti) - Japan's lower house of parliament adopted a statement Tuesday protesting North Korea's nuclear test.
The reclusive communist state announced Monday that it successfully detonated a nuclear device underground, in defiance of a UN Security Council statement urging it to give up nuclear test plans and return to disarmament talks, and earlier warnings from the international community, reports Trend.
"As the only country to have suffered from the use of nuclear weapons, Japan categorically denounces North Korea's conduct of a nuclear test and demands that it abandon its nuclear weapons program," the statement says.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposed introducing in the statement a call on the world community to impose sanctions against North Korea. The proposal was blocked, however, by the opposition Democratic Party.
And the upper house of the country, which has firmly advocated non-proliferation regulations since it fell victim to nuclear strikes in WWII, is planning to adopt a similar statement Wednesday.
Following Pyongyang's widely condemned announcement of a nuclear test, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Tuesday that Japan would take the most resolute measures against North Korea, both unilaterally and in collaboration with the world community.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said his country was planning to impose unilateral sanctions against the Pyongyang regime, but would not impose them without 100% confirmation that the conducted test resulted in a nuclear explosion.
North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, and in February 2005 announced it had acquired nuclear weapons. Some experts, however, questioned the claim.
North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan, China and the United States have been engaged in talks on the nuclear issue since 2003, discussing aid and security guarantees for the secretive regime in exchange for a renunciation of North Korea's nuclear program.
However, talks stalled last November over Pyongyang's demands that the U.S. lift sanctions imposed on it for its alleged involvement in counterfeiting and other illegal activities.