Foreign Min ready to probe Japan-US secret pact under new govt

Japanese Foreign Ministry will cooperate with the next administration under Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama in an expected request to investigate a Japan-US secret accord on allowing nuclear weapons into Japanese territory.

Japanese Foreign Ministry will cooperate with the next administration under Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama in an expected request to investigate a Japan-US secret accord on allowing nuclear weapons into Japanese territory, a top ministry official has indicated.

HT Image

“We will take necessary action in response to instructions we expect once the new administration is inaugurated,” Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka told a news conference on Monday.

The remark marks a turnaround from the Japanese government’s current position of denying the existence of such a pact.

Previously, Yabunaka said repeatedly that the government’s stance on the issue has been clarified by the denial of the pact made by prime ministers and foreign ministers in the past.

In late July, DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada said that the foreign minister under the DPJ’s government would order the Foreign Ministry’s top bureaucrat to disclose documents concerning the secret pact, which has outlined the handing of US forces’ nuclear weapons since 1960.