PM Takaichi Mum on Cabinet, LDP Exec Reshuffles

Nagasaki, Aug. 9 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Sunday stopped short of commenting on possible reshuffles of her cabinet or the lineup of executives at her ruling Liberal Democratic Party. “My cabinet is now making maximum efforts in response to a powerful earthquake that hit Kumamoto Prefecture, so I have nothing to say at the moment,” she told a press conference in the southwestern Japan city of Nagasaki. Takaichi, also president of the LDP, is reportedly considering reshuffling her cabinet and the LDP executive lineup possibly in September. The 7.1-magnitude temblor struck Kumamoto, southwestern Japan, on July 28, measuring up to 7, the highest level on Japan’s seismic intensity scale. The press conference was held after Takaichi attended earlier on Sunday a peace memorial ceremony in Nagasaki marking the 81st anniversary of the Aug. 9, 1945, U.S. atomic bombing of the city. On the relief for people who were exposed to radiation from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki but have not been officially recognized as hibakusha atomic bomb survivors because they were outside of locations designated as atomic-bombed areas by the state, Takaichi said that the government has been providing such victims with financial support on par with that for officially recognized hibakusha for the treatment of a wide range of general symptoms since December 2024. The government will continue steadily offering such support, she added. Of Japan’s three nonnuclear principles, Takaichi has been skeptical about the principle of not allowing the entry of nuclear weapons into the country since before she took office as prime minister last October. Attention has been paid to whether she will opt to revise it as part of the planned update of the government’s three key national security-related documents late this year. At the press conference, Takaichi said that her administration upholds the three principles, also including not possessing nuclear weapons and not producing them, as a policy direction. But she did not rule out the possibility of a revision, saying that “I refrain from giving preconception” about specifics of the planned update of the security documents. Meanwhile, the prime minister said that “I very seriously take the fact that Japan is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” showing her stance of attaching importance to the principles denying the possession and production of nuclear weapons. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]