WASHINGTON, June 29: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Thursday that he and US President George Bush had agreed to impose unspecified ‘pressures’ on North Korea if it launches a long-range missile.

“We both agree that it’s very important for us to remain united in extending a clear message to the North Korean leader that launching the missile is unacceptable,” Mr Bush said during a joint public appearance at the White House.

“Should they ever launch the missile, that will cause various pressures. We would apply various pressures,” Mr Koizumi said through an interpreter. “I believe it is best I do not discuss what specific pressures we were talking about.”

Mr Bush reiterated his concerns that North Korea has not disclosed “what’s on top of the missile” and said of North Korea leader Kim Jong-il, “he hasn’t told anybody where the missile’s going.”

“He has an obligation, it seems like, to me and the prime minister, that there be a full briefing to those of us who are concerned about this as to what his intentions are,” said the president.

Japan is particularly sensitive to such moves by North Korea, which in 1998 fired a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan into the Pacific, prompting Tokyo and Washington to step up cooperation to build missile defences.

This time, Pyongyang is believed to be preparing to launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile, capable of reaching Japan, Alaska or possibly Hawaii.

Mr Koizumi said Japan and the United States must continue to press North Korea to become “a responsible member of the international community.”

“We should have been making various under-the-surface approaches so that North Korea would not launch Taepodong,” Koizumi said.

A US-Japan joint development of the missile defence system could be an answer, Bush said.

“The Japanese cannot be...afford to be held hostage to rockets. And neither can the United States or any other body who loves freedom,” Bush said.

“And so one really interesting opportunity is ... to share and cooperate on missile defences,” he said.

Mr Bush also said that he and the prime minister had discussed abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea and expressed “deep concern” about the human rights situation in the hermetic country.

Mr Bush said he had shared ‘my deep concern about the human condition inside North Korea. He shares that condition. After all, he’s the prime minister of a country that has suffered a lot as a result of abductions’.

The president, who has twin daughters, recalled meeting the mother of a Japanese woman allegedly abducted by North Korea, saying: “It really broke my heart.”

He was referring to his meeting with the mother of Megumi Yokota, who was snatched into a waiting boat in 1977 when she was a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

The Yokota family has as become a symbol of Japanese efforts to push Pyongyang to resolve the row over its abductions of Japanese citizens.

“I told the prime minister it was a moving moment for me. I just could not imagine what it would be like to have someone have taken, you know, my daughter — one of my daughters — and never be able to see her again,” said Bush. —AFP