Japan's Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro. [EPA]
Japan's Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro. [EPA]

Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro said Japan should not treat nuclear weapons policy as a taboo and must be open to discussing it.

According to the Asahi Shimbun and other media outlets, Koizumi made the remarks Saturday on Genron TV, an internet broadcast program. "Nuclear weapons are one of the issues that are difficult for Japan to discuss, but that we cannot avoid mentioning," he said.

Koizumi pointed to developments in Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, noting that France has been expanding its nuclear capabilities and that Finland has allowed nuclear weapons onto its territory. He went on to say that Japan, too, must "discuss and pursue all policies with a sense of urgency and free of taboos."

Japanese media interpreted the remarks as signaling that Koizumi believes Japan's three non-nuclear principles should not be exempt from debate over revisions to the country's three key security documents, which the government aims to revise by the end of the year. The three non-nuclear principles — that Japan will not possess, manufacture or allow the introduction of nuclear weapons — are considered one of the country's foundational national policies.

Koizumi stopped short of explicitly calling for a review of the three non-nuclear principles, but the Asahi Shimbun said he criticized the opposition's stance on upholding them, saying, "Isn't it the case that preserving what we have had until now comes first, while actually defending Japan is being pushed to the back?"

Japan's three non-nuclear principles have long led the country to treat nuclear sharing — the arrangement used by NATO members to host US tactical nuclear weapons on their soil — as off-limits. However, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has previously raised the need to review the no-introduction principle, one of the three, drawing attention to whether the issue will be addressed in the revision of the three key security documents.


yeongdai@heraldcorp.com