Duterte backs Japan's stand vs. NoKor

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said he supported Japan's position against North Korea and its nuclear threat.

"I can assure you that in the matter of the interest of your country and mine, we are supporting you against what North Korea is doing," Duterte told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their bilateral meeting.

"We have said it several times already in the past that it is not [in] the interest of North Korea to swagger around and threaten the world, of keeping us hostage with the atomic weapons. We condemn his several launching of missiles. It is bad. It puts a strain on everybody, not only in Japan but all over the world."

The Philippine president said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should realize that he would be responsible for the end of the planet "if his mind goes out of control."

"That is why we are persuading him, maybe pleading him to stop the aggressive posture because we are not… The Philippines is about too far but, you know, nobody will save us from a holocaust if it happens," Duterte explained.

The bilateral meeting took place after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Japan Summit, during which Abe said that the nuclear and missile issues in the Korean peninsula were "grave and imminent" threats.

"We need to make North Korea change their policy by enhancing the pressure applied to North Korea to the highest level by all available means, including the full implementation of the Security Council’s resolutions," Abe proposed in his opening remarks. — DVM, GMA News