Panel to postpone filing report on secret U.S.-Japan pacts

TOKYO, Jan. 11 Kyodo -
A Japanese government panel decided Monday to postpone filing a report on its
investigations into four Japan-U.S. pacts involving the 1960 revision of the
bilateral security treaty and the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan from U.S.
control, whose existence had long been denied, government officials said.
The panel, headed by University of Tokyo professor Shinichi Kitaoka, had
earlier planned to complete the report by the end of January, but it now sees
the need to conduct more investigations before filing its findings with Foreign
Minister Katsuya Okada, the officials said.
Due to the decision made during the panel's meeting on Monday, the government
would not be able to disclose the secret pacts by the end of this month as
earlier planned.
The panel will inform Okada of its decision to delay filing the report and will
set a new deadline, the officials said.
The panel had initially planned to compile a report by the end of last November
before putting off the deadline to the end of January.
The panel has already confirmed the existence of three out of the four secret
pacts.
The three are those involving Japan's agreement on stopovers and passage of
nuclear-armed U.S. warships, use of U.S. military bases in the event of a
contingency on the Korean Peninsula, and allowing the United States to bring
nuclear weapons into Okinawa in times of emergency.
The remaining pact allegedly involves Japan's sharing the cost of the reversion
of Okinawa.
The panel plans to conduct more interviews with former foreign ministers to
analyze the background on why the pacts were kept secret and with former senior
Foreign Ministry officials to confirm they have successively kept the pact
undisclosed.
==Kyodo