Japan on Monday (December 22) strongly condemned a cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that the United States has blamed on North Korea, and said it was maintaining close contact with Washington on the matter.
Japan’s top government spokesman Cabinet Secretary General Yoshihide Suga told reporters in a news conference that they would “coordinate closely with the United States on this incident.”
He also expressed Japan’s support for measures being undertaken by the United States.
“Cyber attacks are grave issues which affect the security of a nation and we strongly condemn the hacking,” Suga said.
“We will be dealing with this closely with the United States,” he added.
Suga did not answer when asked if Japan was convinced North Korea was behind the cyber attack, but repeated that he did not think talks would be affected with North Korea over the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang agents decades ago.
“I don’t think this incident will affect Japan-North Korean negotiations but we strongly urge North Korea to investigate (the abduction issue) rapidly and give Japan a fast and honest response to the results,” he said. (with a report from TV Tokyo/Reuters)
