North Korea Condemns Japan Over Move to Revise Constitution, Calls It 'Declaration of War on Humankind'

North Korea recently condemned Japan over the country's move to revise its pacifist constitution and called it an "open declaration of war against humankind."

North Korea's state-run news agency, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), published an article on Wednesday stating that, "The Japanese politicians' projected constitutional revision is not merely an internal affair of a country but an international one as it is a frontal challenge to the efforts for ensuring global peace and an open declaration of war against humankind."

The criticism from North Korea comes amid moves in Japan to revise its pacifist constitution, with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga expressing support for changes including wording that would explicitly state the need for Japan to have self-defense forces.

"Japan should have responded to the humankind's call for peace with its honest observance of core articles specified in its constitution," the KCNA article said. "But Japan has made desperate efforts to turn itself, which renounced war, into a war-capable country, remaining unchanged in its wild ambition for launching reinvasion to avenge the past defeat."

The KCNA article also said "the Japanese people and the international community strongly oppose the projected constitutional revision, condemning it as a design for reviving a war state."

In the final line of the article, North Korea warned Japan that "If Japan fails to draw a lesson from its past defeat, such tragedy will repeat."

According to The Japan Times, on May 3 - Japan's Constitution day - Suga suggested his support for the constitutional revisions.

"Interest is heightening on the need to prepare for a state of emergency, such as dealing with the pandemic," Suga said in a video released to a group supporting constitutional revision. "In order to protect the lives and safety of the public during emergencies, such as major natural disasters, an extremely important and serious issue is how to position within the Constitution the roles to be played by the people and the state."

"Parts that no longer match the current times or are insufficient should be revised," he said in the video.

The Japan Times reported that Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has called for several constitutional revisions, including a state emergency declaration as well as changes to wording in Article 9 of the constitution which states the need for self-defense forces, which has been limited under the country's constitution since World War II.

During an interview with The Sankei Shimbun earlier this month, Suga suggested that a majority of the public support the changes to Article 9 of the constitution saying, "Many citizens have come around to the view that the SDF's status should be explicitly legitimized."

As Suga noted, the proposed revision to state the need for self-defense forces in Japan has been supported by the public as a recent poll from the Mainichi Shimbun and the Social Survey Research Center found that 51 percent of respondents said they back revisions to the war-renouncing wording of Article 9 to explicitly state the existence of self-defense forces in Japan.

Newsweek reached out to Suga's office for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.