Minister says Japan has no plans for nuclear arms

TOKYO – Japan has the technological know-how to produce a nuclear weapon but has no immediate plans to do so, the foreign minister said today, several weeks after communist North Korea carried out a nuclear test.

Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who has called for discussion of Japan’s non-nuclear policy, also asserted that the pacifist constitution does not forbid possession of the bomb.

“Japan is capable of producing nuclear weapons,” Aso told a parliamentary committee on security issues. “But we are not saying we have plans to possess nuclear weapons.”

Japan, the only country ever attacked by atomic weapons, has for decades espoused a strict policy of not possessing, developing or allowing the introduction of nuclear bombs on its territory.

The non-nuclear stance, however, has come under increasing scrutiny since North Korea’s Oct. 9 nuclear test, which raised severe security concerns in Japan.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has asserted several times since the test that Japan would not stray from its non-nuclear policy, and he has refused to initiate a formal review of that stance.

Several high-ranking government and ruling party members, however, including Aso, have argued for a high-level reappraisal of the nuclear policy in light of the North Korean threat.