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2009 June 3 - 9 [POLITICS]

JCP Inoue urges government to make ‘secret Japan-U.S. nuclear deal’ known

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Inoue Satoshi demanded that the government make known to the Diet the “secret Japan-U.S. accord that gave tacit approval to U.S. military vessels or aircraft to bring in nuclear weapons to seaports and airports in Japan.”

The secret pact was reported on May 31 by Kyodo News agency based on testimonies from four former vice foreign ministers.

Speaking at the House of Councilors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on June 2, Inoue stressed, “The revelation poses a serious political problem in that successive governments have been deceiving the public and the rest of the world. The government must present the Diet with all documents related to the secret agreement so that the matter will be thoroughly examined.”

Quoting the Kyodo News report that a former vice foreign minister testified that a “secret accord on handling nuclear weapons has been controlled by top Foreign Ministry officials” and that “only a handful of prime ministers and foreign ministers were informed of the fact,” Inoue stated, “This is a matter that undermines the very foundation of parliamentary democracy.”

However, Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi and the ministry’s International Legal Affairs Bureau Director-General Tsuruoka Koji just repeated the government’s position that there is no such secret pact.

Citing another testimony that these diplomatic exchanges and processes were recorded in the ministry's in-house document, Inoue pointed to a secret accord on the bringing in of nuclear weapons to Japan, which was declassified by the U.S. government and later introduced by the JCP in the Diet in 2000 asking if these two documents are one and the same.

Inoue demanded that the government produce these documents and submit them to the Diet. However, Nakasone rejected the request.

Since this matter has a serious bearing on Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles (to not possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan), Inoue demanded that the committee make thorough inquiries into the affair by invoking the Diet’s investigative power.

Shimba Kazuya, the committee chair, promised to examine Inoue’s proposal at the committee board meeting.