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Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday downplayed a brewing debate in his party on the nuclear option, saying no one was calling for the country to build atomic weapons. Top aides to Abe have called for Japan to hold a frank debate on whether to develop nuclear weapons after communist neighbor North Korea on October 9 tested an atom bomb. Abe, despite championing a greater military role for Japan, has rejected going nuclear.
He has stood by a 1967 policy under which Japan, the only nation to be attacked by atomic weapons, has refused the possession, production and presence of nuclear weapons on its soil.
“It is extremely clear that the three-point non-nuclear principles are and have been the government's unchanged policy. No one is against this policy,” Abe told reporters.
Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and Foreign Minister Taro Aso have both called for Japan to discuss the long-taboo nuclear option, while stopping short of urging development of atomic weapons.
LDP parliamentary affairs chief Toshihiro Nikai on Sunday indirectly criticized Abe for the remarks of his aides.
“The repeated comments that could risk causing misunderstanding by the international community may lead to questions about the person who appointed those people,” said Nikai, a dovish former trade minister.
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 forced Japan to renounce its right to a military after its defeat and has since ensured its security.
