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Japan moves to defuse diplomatic spat with US
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Monday January 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Japanese officials today attempted to defuse a diplomatic spat with the US after the defence minister, Fumio Kyuma, publicly attacked George Bush's foreign policy for the second time in less than a week.
Last week Mr Kyuma said Mr Bush had been wrong to order the invasion of Iraq on the assumption that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, and at the weekend he added to bilateral tensions when he accused the US of ignoring the opinions of Okinawa's leaders over the relocation of a US marine base on the island.
The presence of a prominent loose cannon in the cabinet is proving a distraction for the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, whose personal approval ratings have slipped to 40% just months before important upper house elections.
Today his top spokesman, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, insisted that Mr Abe's colleagues were all on message. "I want to make it clear that our cabinet is not allowing people to just say what they want," he told reporters.
He said US officials had inquired about Mr Kyuma's remarks on Iraq but had not lodged an official complaint. "We haven't been told anything reproachful," he said.
The Kyodo news agency, however, reported that
He reportedly suggested that further criticisms could make it difficult to arrange the next round of "two-plus-two" talks between Japan's defence and foreign ministers and their US counterparts.
Over the weekend Mr Kyuma turned his fire on Washington's role in bilateral attempts to reduce the US military footprint on Okinawa, home to about two-thirds of the 50,000 US troops in Japan.
The countries have agreed to relocate the marine's Futenma air base to a less densely populated part of the island, but Mr Kyuma said at the weekend that the US did not understand the need to secure the Okinawa governor's approval for the move.
"The United States doesn't understand [the importance of] spadework," he said in a speech in Nagasaki.
Last week he said of the Iraq war: "I think President Bush launched the war in the belief there were nuclear weapons, but I think that decision was wrong."
The outburst caused embarrassment in Japan, whose troops provided humanitarian relief in Iraq from early 2004 until last summer.
Mr Abe reiterated Japan's support for the war, but his defence minister's comments, which came hours before Mr Bush committed 20,000 more troops to Iraq in his state of the union address, clearly irritated US officials.
Mr Kyuma later made what appeared to be only a half-hearted attempt to apologise for his comments. "If they were taken [as criticism], I think I should be more careful about how I say things," he said. "Even if they were my thoughts, I think perhaps it would be better not to speak them."
Japan moves to defuse diplomatic spat with US | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
Japan moves to defuse diplomatic spat with US
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Monday January 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Japanese officials today attempted to defuse a diplomatic spat with the US after the defence minister, Fumio Kyuma, publicly attacked George Bush's foreign policy for the second time in less than a week.
Last week Mr Kyuma said Mr Bush had been wrong to order the invasion of Iraq on the assumption that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction, and at the weekend he added to bilateral tensions when he accused the US of ignoring the opinions of Okinawa's leaders over the relocation of a US marine base on the island.
The presence of a prominent loose cannon in the cabinet is proving a distraction for the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, whose personal approval ratings have slipped to 40% just months before important upper house elections.
Today his top spokesman, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, insisted that Mr Abe's colleagues were all on message. "I want to make it clear that our cabinet is not allowing people to just say what they want," he told reporters.
He said US officials had inquired about Mr Kyuma's remarks on Iraq but had not lodged an official complaint. "We haven't been told anything reproachful," he said.
The Kyodo news agency, however, reported that
James Zumwalt, the director of the state department's Japan affairs office, had told the Japanese embassy in Washington that the US took the remarks about Iraq "very seriously".
Over the weekend Mr Kyuma turned his fire on Washington's role in bilateral attempts to reduce the US military footprint on Okinawa, home to about two-thirds of the 50,000 US troops in Japan.
The countries have agreed to relocate the marine's Futenma air base to a less densely populated part of the island, but Mr Kyuma said at the weekend that the US did not understand the need to secure the Okinawa governor's approval for the move.
"The United States doesn't understand [the importance of] spadework," he said in a speech in Nagasaki.
Last week he said of the Iraq war: "I think President Bush launched the war in the belief there were nuclear weapons, but I think that decision was wrong."
The outburst caused embarrassment in Japan, whose troops provided humanitarian relief in Iraq from early 2004 until last summer.
Mr Abe reiterated Japan's support for the war, but his defence minister's comments, which came hours before Mr Bush committed 20,000 more troops to Iraq in his state of the union address, clearly irritated US officials.
Mr Kyuma later made what appeared to be only a half-hearted attempt to apologise for his comments. "If they were taken [as criticism], I think I should be more careful about how I say things," he said. "Even if they were my thoughts, I think perhaps it would be better not to speak them."
Japan moves to defuse diplomatic spat with US | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited
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