PM Takaichi Left Tokyo after Reports of Strikes against Iran

Tokyo, March 1 (Jiji Press)–Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi left Tokyo on Saturday for a political trip as president of the Liberal Democratic Party after receiving reports of U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran. At a news conference in the small hours of Sunday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara defended her decision not to cancel the trip, which has drawn criticism. Takaichi flew to Komatsu Airport in Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, on Saturday evening on a commercial plane from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. She gave a speech in the Ishikawa capital of Kanazawa to support a candidate in the prefecture’s gubernatorial election on March 8. At the beginning of the speech, she said, “I received the first report of the attacks just as I was about to leave for the airport, and just before I got on the plane, (I heard) the U.S. military likely participated.” “I hesitated a lot about whether to get on board,” she also said. Takaichi returned to Tokyo later Saturday and discussed the situation in the Middle East at a National Security Council meeting. “We have taken necessary measures. We do not think there was a problem with the trip itself,” Kihara said. A source close to Takaichi also said, “Reports were made (to Takaichi) in full detail. Not a single second was wasted.” Akira Koike, top secretary of the Japanese Communist Party, criticized Takaichi’s decision in a post on X, formerly Twitter. The trip “was not official duty but political activity, so it was her responsibility to stop the plan without hesitation and engage in crisis management,” the post said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]