Japan Press Weekly

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2011 June 22 - 28 [TOKYO]

Tokyo governor: Japan must be nuclear armed

Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro on June 20 at a seminar in Tokyo said, “It is absolutely necessary for Japan to possess nuclear weapons. Japan can never be considered a full-fledged nation unless it has nuclear weapons.”

The governor, speaking at the seminar hosted by Kamei Shizuka of the People’s New Party, blatantly made the remarks while criticizing Japan’s pacifist Constitution and the national adoption of the Three Nonnuclear Principles.

Ishihara told the audience that the United States does not definitively protect Japan, and that nuclear powers have more influence in the international political arena than nonnuclear states.

Ishihara has repeatedly made statements in support of Japan’s nuclear armament and of the introduction of a military draft, and in opposition to Japan’s Constitution, the supreme law of the nation.

He had called the March 11 tsunami “divine punishment” and declared himself a “nuclear power advocate” in the aftermath of the nuclear accident.