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It’s cloudy

WASHINGTON-Deputy foreign Minister Takeo Akiba has not ruled out building a nuclear weapons storage facility in Okinawa Prefecture in comments he allegedly made in 2009 when he was a Minister at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, a U.S. researcher said Monday.

Gregory Kulacki, project Manager in China at the Union of concerned scientists of the United States, cited a document he received on February 27, 2009, summarizing Akiba’s speech to a congressional Commission that year.

Asked how Japan might consider building a nuclear weapons storage facility in Okinawa or GUAM, Akiba “stated that he considered such a proposal convincing,” the document said.

However, in Tokyo, foreign Minister Taro Kono denied that Akiba had made such a remark.

“The government firmly adheres to the three non-nuclear principles” of not possessing, not producing and not allowing nuclear weapons to enter Japan, Kono said.

Japan times LTD. All rights reserved.