Japan’s Foreign Ministry is considering scrapping bilateral cooperation committees on nuclear disarmament with Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, senior ministry official Yuji Miyamoto said yesterday, speaking before a Japanese House of Representatives committee (see GSN, April 15).

The former Soviet countries are ill-equipped to construct facilities to dispose of radioactive waste and to implement other programs to dispose of nuclear arms, Miyamoto said.  Some of the funds Japan has provided for such programs were not used as intended, he said.

“There are some systematic problems regarding the implementation (of the planned disposal projects).  Although we have to see how Russia (and the three other countries) respond, we’d like to seriously consider abolishing the committees,” Miyamoto said.  He would like to end the committees “as soon as possible,” he added (Yomiuri Shimbun/Asia New Network/India Statesman, May 30).

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