Defense minister denies policy of arms embargo

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Defense minister denies policy of arms embargo

Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi on November 11 at a House of Representatives Security Committee meeting made a controversial remark on Japan's policy of arms embargo.

He said that Japan's principle of maintaining a ban on arms exports is not a national policy in reply to Japanese Communist Party representative Yoshii Hidekatsu criticizing the government for violating its arms embargo policy by jointly developing military equipment with the United States and by carrying out a joint project on fighters with France.

A Japan-U.S. joint research project on the navigation imaging technology "gyro" to be installed in unmanned aircraft has been underway, and the Ministry of Defense has conducted stealth fighter performance tests with the French Procurement Agency (DGA).

Yoshii pointed out that U.S. unmanned spy planes and gunships have been deployed on missions in Afghanistan and that many unarmed Afghan people have been killed or injured.

Yoshii argued that the "gyro" serving as the eye of unmanned aircraft is "military technology" and that Japan has "already started a military technology partnership" with France on stealth fighters.

"The principle of maintaining an arms embargo is a Diet resolution adopted in the both Houses. Don't you think it is a national policy?" Yoshii asked.

Kitazawa answered, "The Diet resolution has weight but this doesn't necessarily mean it is a national policy."

Yoshii again demanded that Japan firmly stick to its arms embargo principle.

The Japanese Diet in 1967 adopted three principles which prohibit arms sales to communist countries, to countries on which the UN imposes an arms trade embargo, and to countries involved in or likely to be involved in international conflicts. Since then, successive governments have applied the ban to all foreign countries.

- Akahata, November 12, 2010