UN General Assembly
2007

attention to Japan’s recent attempt to use militarization to cast a dark shadow across the future development of the Korean peninsula and its neighbours. In addition, Japan’s discriminatory and repressive acts deny the national rights of Koreans in Japan, in violation of international law. Japan's recent manoeuvres against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), have driven relations between Japan and our country to the lowest possible level. In an open challenge to the international community’s denunciation and condemnation of Japan’s treatment of Koreans, Japanese authorities have not hesitated to distort history, even going so far as to try to conceal Japan’s bloody past crimes, while turning the “self- defence force” into a regular army with a mandate that permits pre-emptive strikes against other countries by changing the “Peace Constitution” into a war constitution. Indeed, Japan's attempt to eliminate by force the Chongryon, the legitimate overseas organization of compatriots from my country, constitutes an infringement of the sovereignty of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as serious as any financial