Ex-Japan officials acknowledge nuke deal

TOKYO, June 1 (UPI) -- Four former top Japanese officials have acknowledged that Japan has a secret deal with the United States to allow nuclear weapons into the country.

Although the 1960 deal has been known in Japan since U.S. documents were declassified in the late 1990s, Tokyo has consistently denied it has any arrangement to allow nuclear-armed U.S. aircraft and vessels to stop over in the country without prior consultation. But now four former Japanese vice foreign ministers have confirmed the deal, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported Monday.

It said the admissions by the top Foreign Ministry bureaucrats may serve to shatter Tokyo's tightly-held public position that it has always remained resolutely opposed to any kind of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil.

One of the four told Kyodo he saw documents spelling out the arrangement and handed them down to his successor, saying, "It was a great secret," while another vice foreign minister said the ministry only informed politicians whom it saw as trustworthy.

The Foreign Ministry again denied any secret deals on the handling of nuclear weapons between Japan and the United States, Kyodo said.