Japan is to send a huge cache of plutonium — enough to produce 50 nuclear bombs — to the US as part of a deal to return the material that was used for research, reports and officials said yesterday.
The plutonium stockpile, provided by the US, Britain and France decades ago, has caused some disquiet given that Japan has said it has the ability to produce a nuclear weapon even if it chooses not to.
About 331kg of the highly fissile material is to be sent by ship to a nuclear facility in South Carolina by the end of March, Kyodo News reported on Monday in a dispatch from Washington that cited unnamed Japanese government sources.
The shipment, which comes ahead of a nuclear security summit in Washington in March, is meant to underscore both countries’ commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and is part of a deal they made in 2014.
It is to be one of Japan’s most significant overseas movements of plutonium since it transported 1 tonne from France in 1993 to be used in nuclear reactor experiments. That shipment triggered an outcry at the time from countries citing environmental and security concerns.
An official in the nuclear technology section of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology yesterday confirmed the amount of plutonium to be sent to the US, saying that preparations for the shipment are under way, “but we can’t comment on further details, including the departure date and route, for security reasons.”
The material has been stored at the Nuclear Science Research Institute, he added.
Japan relies heavily on nuclear technology for its energy needs. In 2006, then Japanese minister for foreign affairs Taro Aso sparked panic in neighboring countries by saying Tokyo had the know-how to produce nuclear arms, but opted not to.
Japan is the only country to have ever been attacked with nuclear weapons, and under a 1967 policy it refuses to produce, possess or allow nuclear weapons on its soil, although it allows US warships to carry such weapons in its territory in an emergency.
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