Japan vows to exercise nuke restraint
Foreign Desk Report

TOKYO—Japan says it has the legal right to develop nuclear weapons despite its pacifist constitution but has no intention even to consider the long-taboo idea. Prominent lawmakers have called on Japan, the only nation to suffer nuclear attack, to debate the nuclear option after communist neighbor North Korea on October 9 said it had tested its first atom bomb.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki argued that the US-imposed pacifist constitution allows Japan “the right to possess minimum capability” for self-defense. “Theoretically and technically, nuclear weapons might be included in this, but this is different from the government’s policy,” said Shiozaki, the top government spokesman.
“The government has no intention of changing its three-point non-nuclear principles, nor the intention of discussing the issue,” he told a news conference. He was responding to the latest remarks by Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who wants Japan to discuss going nuclear in light of the North Korean threat.
“The government sticks to its policy of not having nuclear weapons, but the government also says that it is allowed to have nuclear weapons under the constitution,” Nakagawa said Monday. Nakagawa is a close aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who strongly supports revising the constitution to give Japan a more active military role.
But Abe has repeatedly ruled out discussing the nuclear option. The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by US nuclear bombs at the end of World War II that killed more than 210,000 people. The United States has ensured Japan’s security since then and forced it to renounce its right to a military.
The White House welcomed North Korea’s renewed pledge to scrap its nuclear weapons in return for concessions, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
“We welcome the announcement and look forward to resuming the talks soon,” Johndroe said after North Korea reaffirmed in Beijing a pledge made last year to scrap its nuclear arms for concessions. US negotiator Christopher Hill, after a meeting with his North Korean and Chinese counterparts to six-party talks, said Pyongyang had agreed to return to the talks as early as November without conditions.
Additionally Pyongyang promised to abide by the pledge to scrap its nuclear weapons made at the forum in September 2005.
“We all reaffirmed, including the North Koreans, our commitment to the September statement and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” Hill told reporters in Beijing.
North Korea agreed on Tuesday to return to stalled six-party talks on ending its nuclear programs some three weeks after staging its first nuclear test and a U.S. envoy said he expected “substantial progress.” In an informal meeting in Beijing, North Korea, the United States and China agreed to resume talks in the near future at a time convenient for all six parties, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on its Web site.
The other three countries involved in the talks are South Korea, Japan and Russia. A fifth round of talks in Beijing broke off last November without progress and North Korea later protested over a U.S. crackdown on its international finances.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told a news conference that he expected “substantial progress” from the next round of talks, possibly in November or December, after he met his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, in Beijing.
North Korea had made no explicit promises not to conduct any further nuclear tests, Hill said, adding that the U.N. Security Council resolution on Pyongyang remained in force. “I think it’s self-evident they should not engage in such provocations,” Hill said of further tests. The talks would address North Korea’s concerns with the U.S. financial measures, possibly through a working group, he said, adding that Pyongyang needed to abandon “illicit activities” that Washington has said include currency counterfeiting.
The U.N. Security Council voted on October 14 to impose financial and arms sanctions on North Korea after its October 9 nuclear test.