Koizumi wants to draw curtains on 'excluding NGO' issue: JCP Fudesaka

"A politician interfered with foreign policy, and the Foreign Ministry accepted it. How can it happen that Japan's foreign policy was changed so easily by a politician's interference?"

At the House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on January 30, Fudesaka Hideyo, Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission chair, questioned the government on the recent exclusion by the Foreign Ministry of two non-governmental organizations from an international Afghan assistance conference under the pressure of Liberal Democratic Party Dietmember Suzuki Muneo.

"Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro is turning his back on the public demand that the true aspect of the NGO issue be made thoroughly clear," said Fudesaka.

As regards the government decision to dismiss Foreign Minister Tanaka Makiko, Fudesaka pointed out that by doing so Koizumi intends to hush up the truth over who is to blame.

"Either Tanaka (former foreign minister) or Nogami Yoshiji (former vice foreign minister) and Suzuki Muneo are lying and if the matter remains unsettled, the Diet will be full of lies," Fudesaka stated.

However, Koizumi emphasized that "NGO members took part in the conference after all," and "the problem of 'the exclusion of NGO' doesn't make much sense." Coming to help the ministry Africa-Middle East Division director general who was in straits, the prime minister went so far as to say, "Ministry officials are too busy to remember everything that Dietmembers said."

Rebuffing this, Fudesaka said, "It seems that the prime minister doesn't understand the seriousness of the matter at all."

"The point is that politician Suzuki interfered with foreign ministry affairs, and the ministry officials acted accordingly," said Fudesaka, and concluded: "It has become all the clearer that the Koizumi Cabinet is unqualified to carry out Japan's diplomacy." (end)