Minister Vows to Fight Japanese Food Import Curbs

Tokyo, Sept. 7 (Jiji Press)--Japanese reconstruction minister Kenya Akiba has promised to directly urge some countries and regions to remove their import bans on Japanese food products that have been in place since the 2011 nuclear accident. "It's important to persuade them with accumulated scientific evidence," Akiba said in a recent interview. "I will directly present such evidence to people responsible for the import restrictions and ask them to lift the measures." He said that the government is at "an even more important phase" in dealing with negative rumors related to next spring's planned release of treated radioactive water into the ocean from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the site of the accident. Akiba unveiled a plan to establish a panel of experts to discuss measures to tackle such rumors, expressing hopes that specialists in social media will come up with ways to more effectively send information about the treated water. TEPCO plans to release the water after diluting it to lower the concentration of tritium, a radioactive substance, to levels far below the country's safety standards. He also voiced hope that the panel will discuss how to prevent the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which triggered the nuclear accident, from being forgotten. As for children who lost their parents in the disaster, Akiba underlined the need to approach them with offers of assistance on a regular basis. The government gathers data on such children who were aged between zero and 18 years old at the time of the disaster, but it needs to expand the scope to include those around 25 to see whether they have gone on to higher education or found jobs based on their wishes, he said. The government also aims to interview them to find whether they maintain good relations with their relatives who have taken them in, he added. Akiba also said that the Reconstruction Agency is working with local governments to allow all residents wishing to return by the 2020s to their original homes in so-called difficult-to-return zones near the stricken TEPCO plant. END