Japan's opposition to stall 'war on terror' bill
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan's opposition said Friday it will hold up legislation to resume support for the US-led "war on terror" as it probes a growing scandal that has hit the finance minister.
The feud comes as Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda visits Washington, where he is expected to tell President George W. Bush of his hopes to restart a naval mission in the Indian Ocean providing fuel to coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The opposition, which argues that officially pacifist Japan has been too close to the Bush administration, won one house of parliament in summer elections.
The naval mission ended this month due to the legislative deadlock. The lower house, where Fukuda's coalition still enjoys a majority, sent a bill this week to the opposition-led upper house to restart the deployment.
Senior opposition lawmaker Kenji Yamaoka rejected Fukuda's calls for the upper house to take up the legislation quickly, saying that it would first probe bribery allegations levelled at the defence ministry.
"We have to clear up the scandal at the defence ministry first. Unless the issue is resolved, we can't start discussion on the legislation," he said.
He added the opposition would demand sworn testimony in front of a parliamentary committee from Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, who was defence chief in a previous government.
The scandal erupted last month when the defence ministry's recently retired top bureaucrat, Takemasa Moriya, admitted that a military contractor treated Moriya to fine dining, gifts and more than 200 golf trips.
Testifying under oath to parliament Thursday, Moriya said that two defence chiefs including Nukaga joined him at dinners with the contractor, former Yamada Corp. executive Motonobu Miyazaki, who was arrested last week.
Nukaga again Friday denied the charges, saying he may have met Miyazaki and Moriya at dinners or meetings but such meetings would only have been casual and would have involved other people as well.
"There is no record of me being entertained by Mr Miyazaki and Mr Moriya nor do I have memory of such events," Nukaga told reporters.
Yamaoka, the head of parliamentary affairs for the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), rejected Nukaga's explanation.
"In politics, when you say, 'I have no memory of it,' that means, 'it's true but I can't say it'," Yamaoka said.
Fukuda's predecessor, Shinzo Abe, resigned the premiership in September after a series of scandals and the opposition's refusal to extend the Indian Ocean mission.
Fukuda and Abe argue that Japan needs to play a greater role in international security befitting the world's second largest economy.
Opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa countered that there should be "no worry at all" about not pleasing Bush as the US president is deeply unpopular at home.
"President Bush has no support from the American people. You don't have to show regard for him," Ozawa told the liberal Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
But Ozawa himself has faced criticism after agreeing this month to consider Fukuda's offer of a grand coalition between the DPJ and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power almost without break for 50 years.
The grand coalition idea was rejected by the DPJ, which comprises an assortment of conservatives and former socialists. Ozawa offered his resignation until DPJ colleagues persuaded him to stay on.
Ozawa told the Asahi he still believed he was right to support a coalition, arguing the DPJ would be able to implement its policies and gain voter support if in power.
"But if everybody else doesn't want it, regrettably I can't help abandoning it. We only have to win the elections now," he said.