Press Conference, 6 October 2006

Visit of President Elias Antonio Saca Gonzalez of El Salvador to Japan
Visit of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam to Japan
Sixth round of negotiations on the Japan Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement
Cultural grant aid to the Republic of Bulgaria for support of the Symphony Orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio
Questions concerning Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visits to the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Korea (ROK)
Questions concerning North Korea's announcement of nuclear tests
Questions concerning the Azadegan oil field negotiations

I. Visit of President Elias Antonio Saca Gonzalez of El Salvador to Japan

Deputy Press Secretary Tomohiko Taniguchi: As usual let me make a couple of announcements before taking questions.

First, from the Republic of El Salvador, the President and his wife will be visiting Japan from 20 to 24 October. His Excellency Mr. Elias Antonio Saca Gonzalez, the President, and Mrs. Saca, will make a state call on Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress will host a Court Luncheon in honor of the President and Mrs. Saca. Before those events taking place on 24 October, the President and his wife will go have a look at Kyoto and meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

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II. Visit of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam to Japan

Mr. Taniguchi: Second, from the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the Prime Minister and his wife will pay an official visit to Japan from 18 to 22 October. His Excellency Mr. Nguyen Tan Dung and Mrs. Dung will be received in audience by Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan. After that on the same day, 19 October, the Prime Minister will also hold a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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III. Sixth round of negotiations on the Japan Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement

Mr. Taniguchi: Third, there will be the sixth round of negotiations on the Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), from 10 to 13 October in Tokyo. The Japanese team will be headed by Deputy Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Mitoji Yabunaka, and the Indonesian by Mr. Soemadi Djoko Moerdjono Brotodiningrat.

The negotiations on the Japan-Indonesia EPA started in July last year, and have gained speed and steam to the effect that most of the issues have now already been more or less covered.

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IV. Cultural grant aid to the Republic of Bulgaria for support of the Symphony Orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio

Mr. Taniguchi: Lastly, the Japanese Government has decided to extend to the Republic of Bulgaria a cultural grant aid of an amount up to 50.7 million Japanese yen. The exchange of notes took place already, on 5 October. The money will help support the Symphony Orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio to renew some of its musical instruments.

That is it for me. Do you have any questions?

V. Questions concerning Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visits to the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Korea (ROK)

Q: How concerned is the Government that Prime Minister Abe's summits in Beijing and Seoul are going to be overshadowed by the North Korean nuclear threat? Is this going to distract from the other important issues that originally had been on the agenda?

Mr. Taniguchi: To the contrary, this is going to be one of the most important issues to be discussed between President Hu Jintao of the People's Republic of China and Prime Minister Abe, and between President Roh Moo-Hyon of the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Prime Minister Abe. Given the enormity of the problem, the leaders of the People's Republic of China, the ROK, and Japan are all going to discuss this issue very much seriously. This is in no way going to distract anything from the meetings.

Q: But as for the other issues on the agenda, are there indications that it will take away from the time for those bilateral issues?

Mr. Taniguchi: The details of the agenda have not been disclosed, so I should not say much about those, but let me say that the Japanese bureaucrats and diplomats have gained fame, or some might say notoriety, for covering all the agenda items, so I would imagine that the Japanese side, of course including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe himself, is going to try to cover the scheduled items as much as possible.

Q: On Prime Minister Abe's trips to China and the ROK, are we expecting any new statements or any joint documents of any kind in either Beijing or Seoul?

Mr. Taniguchi: That is still a matter to be discussed directly between the leaders, and I cannot say anything at the moment.

Q: I have a question about the word that the Press Secretary of the Chinese Government used. The words were "political obstacles." The Government of the People's Republic of China said that both Governments have agreed to overcome political obstacles before launching this bilateral meeting. What political obstacles has the Government of Japan agreed to overcome?

Mr. Taniguchi: I do not know. It could mean anything from the Chinese side, but both nations have agreed to make this trip a success, and a forward-looking one, a basis on which the future prosperous relationship will be created and nurtured. In any case, the fact that the meeting is going to take place between the two leaders is indicative that with or without political obstacles, both nations have come to an agreement to hold the bilateral meeting in a very much forward looking fashion.

Q: Can you confirm whether the Chinese Government has introduced any preconditions for the meeting?

Mr. Taniguchi: There are absolutely no preconditions.

VI. Questions concerning North Korea's announcement of nuclear tests

Q: Can you talk about the United Nations statement that is being prepared by Japan on North Korea? I understand that there is pretty much a general consensus on that, and there is probably going to be a vote on Friday. Could you talk about the tweaking that is happening right now?

Mr. Taniguchi: I share your assumption that that has already gained a consensus among the members of the Security Council, but there have been a number of countries, notably the Russian Federation and China that have had to go back to their Ministries, respectively, to get confirmation as to the statement. It is going to be discussed again within today on 6 October, New York time. Discussion will resume involving ambassadors. The meeting that took place yesterday did not necessarily involve ambassadors, but the meeting that they are going to have today on 6 October is going to be a formal one involving the ambassadors. All of them, with firm directions given by the Ministries of their respective countries, will be discussing this issue and quickening the process.

Q: Is the vote going to be taken on Friday? Or is that still in the air?

Mr. Taniguchi: I cannot say for sure; that will depend on the ambassadors in the meeting that will be taking place today, so it is too early for me to say anything about the speed and tempo of the meeting.

Q: Obviously there have been many questions raised with regard to the North Korean statement that they will test a nuclear weapon. I would like to ask this question: Considering the size of the country, which is not particularly huge, do they actually have sufficient space within to test the weapon without affecting other countries?

Mr. Taniguchi: That is probably the reason why it has been generally assumed that the test, if indeed it does take place, will take place underground, possibly with an assumption that it would cause minimal effect, but that itself is a point of concern, as you properly point out, whether or not it will contaminate the air, soil, and so on. I should say that that in itself poses a huge challenge region-wide.

Q: Has the location of such an underground test site been identified?

Mr. Taniguchi: There has been a rumor about the place, and there seems to be a general consensus among the experts about the place which is likely to be the test site, but there is no way to specifically pinpoint that this would be the place that they would be choosing.

Q: May I ask, has the name of that location been identified?

Mr. Taniguchi: It is hard to identify the name and the place, if I use the word "identify" in a strict sense of the word, but there has been a general consensus, I should say, among the experts about the place. I am afraid I cannot recall the name of the place, and if I can I cannot pronounce the name properly.

Q: If I could follow up on that, in light of the possible environmental concerns that have been mentioned, is Japan calling on North Korea, whether directly or indirectly, to give advance notice if they conduct a test so that surrounding countries can take any necessary precautions?

Mr. Taniguchi: That is a good question. I do not know if the Japanese Government is prepared to do that, but I should say that the UN Security Council is going to issue a statement relatively soon alerting North Korea of the danger. The dangers in question would certainly include not necessarily only danger related to the military and proliferation aspects, but all sorts of aspects that would also certainly include the environmental concerns.

Q: I am sorry, but regarding this UN Security Council statement that you mentioned, is this the one that has been prepared by Japan, or is this a separate resolution?

Mr. Taniguchi: It is the one that I talked about.

Q: May I follow up on that? We understand that the Chief Cabinet Secretary has said that Japan has beefed up its monitoring, in the case that the North Koreans do go ahead with this experiment. I understand that there are seismic monitors in Japan that can trace if there is such an underground experiment. Can you explain those?

Mr. Taniguchi: I wish I could, but I do not know much yet. That is a matter of intelligence, and I cannot reveal anything. Generally speaking, however, seismic monitoring is one way to detect any experiment of that scale.

Q: We have heard from you and many other people in the Government many times Japan's statement on not possessing nuclear weapons itself, but there has been a lot of speculation and growing calls in Japan that if North Korea does demonstrate a nuclear capability, that this could start an arms race in northeast Asia and that Japan may be tempted to develop its own nuclear capability. I know that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeated this statement many times, that these things are not possible, but there are rising voices in Japan in this direction, and Prime Minister Abe is of course talking about constitutional revisions, changing the Defense Agency to a Defense Ministry. Is there anything new in the statements that come from Prime Minister Abe or Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Aso in regard to nuclear capability for Japan?

Mr. Taniguchi: As you point out, there are a number of politicians, political pundits, and other opinion molders in Japan that are saying that if indeed North Korea goes nuclear, Japan has to think about its own future strategy. Very few people have vocally advocated that Japan should go nuclear as well; that remains an extreme minority, I should say, and the time-honored policy of Japan, which is to say that Japan should possess no nuclear weaponry, should not produce anything, or should not let anyone bring in any nuclear weaponry is intact. It is still there.

If I can speak in my capacity, Japan has invested a great deal of capital into this time-honored principle. As they say in economics, you could call this a huge amount of sunk cost. In other words, Japan has poured a lot of capital into this, and so the flip side of the coin is that then you would have to spend so much capital again to switch the framework from one to the other. If Japan does think about it, it would have to take all those costs involved into consideration, and needless to say, Japan has been give a nuclear umbrella throughout the postwar era, which is still going on. Given the fact that the security ties between Tokyo and Washington, D.C. have never deteriorated but to the contrary have improved, and Japan is willingly going to shoulder some of the burden of providing security to the region with the United States, but in a traditional fashion, of course, I should not be surprised if the debate is going to be intensified, but it will certainly have to take these factors into consideration.

VII. Questions concerning the Azadegan oil field negotiations

Q: Is there anything new on Azadegan? There have been a lot of conflicting statements in the past couple of days about whether the deal is dead.

Mr. Taniguchi: One thing that is new is that the chairman of Inpex is coming back to Japan, and he is going to update knowledge for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and others. I am not sure what stage he and his company are now in with the Iranian counterpart. There have been a number of reports coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry talked about it this morning, but from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' perspective, there is not much that I can say.

Q: Sir, when is he coming back?

Mr. Taniguchi: Tomorrow; he is called Mr. Matsuo, and he is chairman of the company Inpex.

Q: There is talk that Inpex could lose its rights to Azadegan, but there is also the more realistic prospect that its 75% concession could be lowered to as much as 10%. Whichever way it goes it does not look very good for Inpex and for Japan. As far as energy diplomacy, how concerned is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that whichever way it goes this will effect Japan's energy policy and its attempts to secure a stable energy supply?

Mr. Taniguchi: I do not have anything to say about which direction the negotiation is now headed. That is a topic on which I should like you to talk to the Inpex people directly. The fact is that few people outside of Inpex have been aware of what exactly is going on between the company Inpex and its counterpart in Iran.
In terms of energy security, it is always important for Japan to secure sources of energy, but you should also take into consideration that oil or petroleum is a widely-traded commodity, and there is no difference at all, simply put, between the Iranian oil and the oil produced in other areas. You could swap oil produced in Iran with oil produced elsewhere. That is indicative that oil can be traded very much freely in the world. Japan is a full participant in the open system of trade and as an open economy it can procure oil from all corners of the world.

But that does not negate the importance of us trying to secure sources of oil and energy. One should be cautious in trying to portray that Japan is going to be in a difficult situation if indeed the security of the Azadegan oil field is going to fail in one way or another. I should quickly add that in whatever fashion my comment is going to disturb the negotiation that is actually going on between Inpex and its counterpart, that is going to do harm for the negotiation process, so I should ask you to put what I have just said into a broader perspective.

No more questions? Thank you very much.

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