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KCNA on Truth about Japan's Nuclear Issue

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK

    Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- The Korean Central News Agency released a lengthy memorandum Saturday bringing to light the truth behind the nuclear issue of Japan to warn the Japanese militarist forces against their dangerous moves for nuclear weaponization and resolutely foil them. The memorandum said:
    The imperialists and reactionaries cooked up nuclear issues of those countries with strong tendency towards independence against imperialism in a bid to use them as a means for putting pressure upon them and have become all the more frantic in their conspiratorial plots and pressure campaigns against those countries. But it is none other than Japan which is beset with more serious nuclear issue than any other countries.
    Japan has long pursued nuclear weaponization staying behind the highlight of the nuclear issue in the world, taking advantage of its focus of attention to the nuclear issues in other countries.
    Japan's nuclear weaponization has been pushed ahead at the phase of practical implementation, going beyond the stage of discussion. As a result, there are ample conditions for the descendents of Samurais buoyed by fever for reinvasion to have access to nuclear weapons any moment.
    First of all, Japan has nuclear facilities and technology enough to go nuclear under the pretext of "settlement of power problem by nuclear energy."
    Japan took its first step for the development of nuclear power in 1956. Its first nuclear power plant started its operation in July 1966.
    In 1976 Japan got the U.S. approval for the development of nuclear energy for civilian use in return for signing the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
    Then it was privileged to get the supply of highly enriched uranium under more loose inspection system than that applied to other allies.
    Finding it unable to develop other nuclear reactors due to the U.S. control over the nuclear development, Japan squandered a colossal amount of money in developing new type conversion reactor which relies on raw uranium shipped from Canada as major fuel and has operated it without stop since 1979.
    This made Japan relatively independent of the U.S. control in the field of nuclear development.
    Since the early 1980s Japan's nuclear reactors have become indigenous 100 per cent and acquired the technology of nuclear fission and fusion. In fact, it clawed its way up to the status of quasi-nuclear weapons state.
    According to the "white paper on nuclear energy" issued by the Japanese government in 1993, Japan had 16 nuclear power plants and 46 reactors in operation. This put Japan next to the U.S. and France in terms of general designing capability of nuclear equipment.
    As of the end of 2003 the number of Japan's nuclear power plants jumped to 47.
    A particular mention should be made of the fact that the Japanese reactionaries put Monju, the first fast breeder reactor capable of massively producing nuclear-capable plutonium, on a normal operation on April 5, 1994.
    Moreover, it has operated a new uranium enrichment plant in Rokkashomura, Aomori Prefecture, since May 1992. It is now stepping up the construction of a big spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant capable of reprocessing 60 per cent of the total amount of nuclear waste churned out from across the country.
    In the meantime, Japan is working hard to secure more nuclear substance needed for the production of nuclear weapons.
    In order to secure some 100 tons of plutonium till 2010 through its all-scale operation, the Japanese government has massively shipped and stockpiled plutonium churned out in the course of reprocessing nuclear waste in European countries such as France and Britain.
    In the 1970s and the 1980s, Japan secretly shipped at least one ton of reprocessed plutonium from Britain more than ten times. Transport Ship "Akatsuki Maru" carried plutonium from France to Japan from November 1992 to January 1993. It marked the start of an uninterrupted big campaign for plutonium transport. Japan plans to ship about 30 tons of plutonium from abroad in this way till 2010.
    Japan has steadily developed and perfected modern nuclear delivery means.
    Japan started the development of air-to-ship missile "ASM-1" in 1972 and completed it in 1981. In 1987 Japan improved the ground-to-ship missile "SSM-1" it had test-fired in 1987 and inducted it into the "Self-Defence Forces" in 1990.
    Besides those weapons, Japan has in place 150 mm and 203.2 mm howitzers capable of launching nuclear warheads and different type means of nuclear delivery such as "F15" and "FSX".
    Japan is going ahead with its more ambitious plan for the development of rockets. According to the decisions of the Japanese government and the group for the space development, the development of new type rocket "H-2A" is under way.
    Moreover, Japan is keen to have access even to nuclear "shields".
    The Japanese government has watched for a chance to join in developing MD, a "nuclear shield," since the mid-1990s. In 1999, the Japanese government embarked upon the Japan-U.S. joint research for the development of MD under the pretext of someone's "missile threat". It insisted that "this was in line with the idea of a purely defensive and peace-loving state."
    Noting that there are many behind-the-scene stories about the Japanese militarist forces' nuclear weaponization, the memorandum cited some of the facts. The Japanese political circle and military authorities had prior secret researches and discussions on nuclear armament and war, put their results in documents and adopted them as their policy. Facts about Japan's concealment of nuclear substance have been disclosed one after another. And Japan has repeatedly asserted the use of nuclear weapons in international arenas.
    The memorandum also cited outbursts made by the successive ruling quarters of Japan for nuclear armament to prove that Japan's wild ambition for nuclear armament has its origin in the Japanese imperialists' adventurous attempt to have access to nuclear weapons in the past and this has been pursued generation after generation. The memorandum went on:
    It is preposterous and ridiculous for Japan to keep raising a hue and cry over the DPRK's "nuclear issue" though the former is beset with such grave nuclear issue.
    It is a serious miscalculation and foolish dream if Japan thinks it can hide truth behind its nuclear issue and achieve its wild ambition for nuclear armament by hyping other's "nuclear issue," it concluded.