Japan Press Weekly

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2016 October 12 - 18 [POLITICS]

Defense Minister Inada keeps hold of her ‘Japan should consider possessing nuclear arms’ remark

Defense Minister Inada Tomomi on October 11 at a House of Councilors Budget Committee meeting refused to retract her past remark calling for Japan’s possession of nuclear arms in addition to other ridiculous remarks she made.

Inada in an interview with a rightist magazine issued in March 2011 said that Japan should consider possessing nuclear weapons and proposed a program which forces school children to experience first hand Self-Defense Forces’ daily duties.

Asked by Democratic Party lawmaker Haku Shinkun about her remark on Japan’s possible nuclear armament, Inada said that she expressed her own opinion as an opposition party lawmaker (the Liberal Democratic Party was in the opposition camp in 2011), and indicated her constitutional interpretation that the Constitution allows Japan to “possess” even nuclear weapons as the “minimum level of force”.

Furthermore, refuting Social Democratic Party lawmaker Fukushima Mizuho who criticized Inada’s proposal on an SDF enlistment experience program, the Defense Minister said that she believes that from the educational point of view, it is good for students to have an experience of viewing and even participating in SDF activities, showing her determination to maintain her proposal.

Past related article:
> Japan’s wartime ‘comfort women’ were not sex slaves: LDP policy leader [February 26, 2015]