Theresa May is outraged by North Korea’s reckless provocation in firing a missile over Japan but will not allow it to affect her travel plans when she sets off for a three-day visit to Japan later today.
Mrs May will arrive in Kyoto on Wednesday morning on an overnight flight from London and will be greeted by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, before taking a bullet train to Tokyo with him.
She will carry out a series of discussions on trade, defence and security and will also discuss North Korea with Mr Abe before returning home on Friday.
A Downing Street spokesman said: The Prime Minister is outraged by North Korea’s reckless provocation and she strongly condemns these illegal tests.
From our perspective, we are willing to continue to work with out international partners to keep the pressure on North Korea.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council will consider possible new sanctions against Kim Jong-un’s regime on Tuesday night and over the next three days the Prime Minister will have quite a lot of time with Prime Minister Abe to discuss, among other things, North Korea, the spokesman said.
The spokesman added: We are going on the trip and our plans haven’t changed at all.
North Korea fired a missile over Japan early on Tuesday morning as Tokyo warned citizens in the north of the country to take cover.
The launch also prompted a stark warning from China that tensions on the Korean peninsula had reached a tipping point.An envoy from Pyongyang later accused the United States of driving the Korean peninsula towards an extreme level of explosion.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a briefing in Beijing that the situation was now at a tipping point approaching a crisis.
Japan’s warning system kicked in, advising citizens on its northern Hokkaido island to take precautions, as the missile headed towards land in what was a significant escalation of Kim Jong-un’s military posturing.
The missile later broke into three pieces and landed in the sea. It flew for around 1,700 miles, reaching a maximum altitude of 350 miles, South Korean officials said. The Pentagon confirmed the launch.