Ministry finds possible proof of secret pacts / Records detail nukes, Korean emergency plan

[FarCenter]

The Yomiuri Shimbun

An internal probe by the Foreign Ministry has found documents that could prove the existence of two of the four alleged secret pacts agreed by Japan and the United States, sources said Thursday.

According to the sources, the documents are a record of discussions in which Tokyo is believed to have given tacit consent to the entry of nuclear arms into this country when the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was revised in 1960. Other material relates to minutes taken in connection with a possible military operation in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.

If the ministry's expert panel, which is analyzing the results of the in-house probe, regards these documents as secret pacts, it is likely to have a significant impact on the nation's future security policy, including nuclear matters, according to observers.

The four purported secret pacts touch upon the following issues:

-- The entry of nuclear weapons into Japan, an agreement made at the time of the 1960 revision of the bilateral security treaty.

-- A battle campaign for a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.

-- Allowing stopovers of U.S. vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons after the 1972 reversion of Okinawa from the United States.

-- The provision of funds to restore to their original state sites used by the U.S. military for the Okinawa reversion.

The ministry launched its probe in September following an order by Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, and so far has checked about 3,700 files. The investigative team has now narrowed down the number of pertinent files to several hundred.

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