
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 12, 1994                   TAG: 9402120009
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

JAPAN WON'T BUILD NUCLEAR WEAPONS, PRIME MINISTER SAYS

Japan has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa said Friday, rejecting accusations by North Korea.

"I see no possibility that Japan would decide to become a nuclear power. Such a policy would be against Japan's national interest," Hosokawa said in a speech at Georgetown University.

He was responding to accusations by North Korea, which is facing international pressure to allow inspections of its own nuclear facilities. North Korea has resisted efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct inspections, leading to speculation that North Korea is in fact working on nuclear weapons. Some U.S. officials believe it already may have at least one bomb.

Hosokawa, in Washington to meet with President Clinton on trade and other matters, said Japan "is working closely" with South Korea and the United States to secure North Korea's cooperation on the inspections. U.S. officials have asked China to use its influence with North Korea, and suggested Tokyo bring similar pressure on Beijing.

Clinton and Hosokawa also talked about seeking punitive sanctions against North Korea if that country refuses to allow the inspections.

With Clinton at his side at a news conference, Hosokawa pledged that Japan will put in place "all possible measures" if the U.N. Security Council agrees to impose sanctions against North Korea.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry last week said that Japan was planning to produce nuclear arms by securing large amounts of plutonium and that this was "creating an obstacle to the process of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula."

A British newspaper, citing British intelligence sources, said last month that Japan had acquired all the parts needed to make a nuclear weapon.

In the face of such accusations, Japan has maintained it strictly upholds its decades-old policy not to possess, produce or introduce into Japan any nuclear weapons.

Opposition to nuclear weapons runs deep in Japan, the only nation ever attacked by atomic bombs.

by CNB