Netanyahu in Japan: You have North Korea, we have Iran
Prime Minister in Tokyo for four-day working visit 'intended to strengthen the financial and business ties', calls for closer Israeli-Japanese ties.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday drew a comparison between North Korea and Iran, telling a gathering of Israel Japan Parliamentary Friendship League in Tokyo that both countries should unite in opposition to what he called "rogue regimes."
"There is a common bond between us," Netanyahu said at the start of the meeting. "We're both democratic, progress, technological societies. You face North Korea, which is a rogue regime with nuclear weapons. We face the possibility of Iran, which is a rogue regime that wants to have nuclear weapons."
The prime minister said that in light of the relationship between Tehran and Pyongyang, Japan and Israel should also work together to counter their respective enemies.
"They're cooperating between them, and we should cooperate between us, and I want to commend you for keeping the torch of Israeli-Japanese friendship alive and now it's growing stronger. And it will grow stronger with this visit. I'm confident of that."
The prime minister and his wife, Sara, are on a four-day working visit to Japan, which Netanyahu's office said was "intended to strengthen the financial and business ties between the two countries."
Netanyahu met with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on Monday, the Japanese media reported, for talks in which Abe was expected to likely to call for the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, which collapsed last month.
