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South Korean Foreign Minister and incoming UN chief Ban Ki-Moon have expressed alarm over calls in Japan to consider a nuclear weapons program, saying the debate was not healthy for the region.
“On the option of nuclear arms, which some powerful Japanese politicians have debated since North Korea's atom bomb test, I would like to express concerns,” he said Monday, “not only as South Korean foreign minister but also as the next UN secretary general.
“Such remarks would not serve right for the future of one of the most significant UN member states and a leading country of Northeast Asia,” he said at a news conference in Tokyo.
Top aides to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, including Foreign Minister Taro Aso, 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 atomic bomb.
Abe, however, 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.
“Of course the Japanese government, including the prime minister and foreign minister, says it abides by the three-point, non-nuclear principles,” Ban said. “But it's not good that such a political debate continues.”
Abe on Monday downplayed the brewing debate in his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on the nuclear option, saying no one was calling for the country to build atomic weapons.
“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 LDP's policy chief, and Foreign Minister 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 Sunday reprimanded Nakagawa and Aso for remarks that he said risked Abe's position.
“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.
