(cache) OZAWA CONFIRMS NUCLEAR WEAPONS POTENTIAL OF JAPAN'S PLUTONIUM PROGRAM AS FURTHER NUCLEAR TRANSPORTS LOOM

OZAWA CONFIRMS NUCLEAR WEAPONS POTENTIAL OF JAPAN'S PLUTONIUM PROGRAM AS FURTHER NUCLEAR TRANSPORTS LOOM

7 April 2002

Tokyo, Japan - The statement made Saturday by senior Japanese politician Ichiro Ozawa that Japan could use its commercial plutonium stockpile for making nuclear weapons is further confirmation for Greenpeace of the threat posed by the country's massive plutonium program. The leader of the opposition party Jiyuto (Liberal Party) declared that for Japan, if the military threat posed by China continued to grow, "It would be so easy for us to produce nuclear warheads - we have plutonium at nuclear power plants in Japan, enough to make several thousand such warheads."(1)

In fact, Japan has sufficient plutonium already for more than 7000 nuclear warheads. Currently, Japan has a stockpile of over 38,000 kilograms of plutonium, of which more than 5,000kg is stored at various sites around the country. The largest stock of its plutonium of around 31,000kg is currently stored in France and the UK. This is to be shipped back over the next 10 to 15 years. In total Japan is expected to have more than 45,000kg of plutonium by around 2006-10. This will be even larger if a new plutonium reprocessing plant currently under construction at Rokkasho-mura in northern Japan is completed and operated. The Rokkasho plant is scheduled to produce as much as 100,000kg plutonium during the first fifteen years of operation. In total Japan would have more plutonium than is contained in all United States nuclear warheads. It takes as little as 5kg of this plutonium to make one nuclear weapon.

"Ozawa is right to state the potential of Japan to use its so-called peaceful plutonium program for nuclear weapons purposes. He has exposed the myths of it being a peaceful energy program for a resource poor country. Under this international cover the country has acquired massive stocks of plutonium serving the purpose of an undeclared nuclear weapons program. Ozawa's statement may actually serve an important role in forcing on to the international agenda the scale of Japan's plutonium program and the threat of confrontation in North-east Asia. The challenge is how to make sure that the threat he declares is never carried out," said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International.

Japan's plutonium stocks largely consist of so-called reactor-grade plutonium. For years Japanese government and nuclear industry officials have claimed that reactor-grade plutonium is not suitable for nuclear weapons. This despite the fact that the United States conducted a nuclear weapons test with such material forty years ago and even provided classified data to Japan in the 1970s to prove that it was possible to make nuclear weapons. That was done in a failed effort by the Carter Administration to stop Japan's "commercial" plutonium program. In fact, Japan could make highly sophisticated nuclear weapons with its stocks of plutonium, including that contained in MOX fuel.(2)

International concern over Japan's plutonium program will be highlighted in the near future by the shipment of plutonium MOX fuel due to leave Japan for the UK within the coming months. The shipment of 255kg of plutonium contained in MOX fuel was only transported to Japan in 1999 from the UK. However, following disclosures that producers of the fuel, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) had deliberately falsified vital safety data, the Japanese government demanded its return. The UK government and BNFL hope that its return will open the way for the shipment of thousands of kilograms of plutonium to Japan in the form of MOX fuel over the next 10-15 years.

Since 1985, Japan has shipped more than 2,300kg of plutonium from France and the UK. All of it justified to the tens of en-route countries opposed to the shipments on the grounds that it was for Japan's peaceful energy program. Not one gram of the plutonium has been loaded into a nuclear reactor, and not one kilowatt of energy has been produced from it.

"The responsibility of the UK and France, as well as the United States, in supporting and supplying plutonium and reprocessing technology to Japan cannot be overstated. They have fanned the flames of nuclear proliferation in the highly unstable North-east Asia region. Ozawa is also right to make the connection between Japan's plutonium program and the threat from China's unjustified nuclear weapons program. That is a connection made by Japanese defense planners for the last thirty years. But he is wrong to suggest that Japan's possession of nuclear weapons would give it military superiority over China. It would only bring a nuclear arms race and catastrophe for hundreds of millions of people. Nuclear disarmament and an end to all trade in weapons plutonium is part of the solution to the underlying problems in this region and globally," said Kazue Suzuki of Greenpeace Japan.

So long as nuclear weapons are retained and justified by the existing nuclear weapon states, the threat of nuclear proliferation will grow. On Monday 8th at the United Nations in New York talks will open on the Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Issues on the agenda will be the growing threat posed by the US nuclear weapons program, including the possibility of a resumption in nuclear testing, as well as the Bush missile defense program. The continued failure by the US as well as the other NPT nuclear weapon states, Russia, China, Britain and France to abide by their NPT commitments to disarm will also be under the spotlight by the majority of non-nuclear weapon states party to the NPT. The breakdown of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, including the threat posed by new states acquiring nuclear weapons to counter existing weapons states will also figure highly during the two weeks of talks.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Shaun Burnie - Greenpeace International - Tokyo 090 2253 7306
Kazue Suzuki - Greenpeace Japan - Tokyo - 090 2249 1502

1. Ozawa's statement was made during a lecture given in the southern City of Fukuoka.

2. Defense planners as far back 1969 stated that Japan should retain the option to go nuclear if the conditions required it. The acquisition of plutonium under the guise of a peaceful energy program as well as the development of missile technology was included in that a 1970 Defense White Paper. By coincidence, Japanese Government officials announced also on Saturday that they would develop a more powerful H2-A rocker for their space program. The H2 program includes the development of an orbital re-entry vehicle, suspected to be related to Japan's researching the delivery of multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRV). China is also considered to be developing MIRV systems for its intercontinental ballistic missiles.