DPJ official says that missile defence not the most effective method of thwarting attacks from North Korea; Pentagon says it expects Japan’s new government to continue to work with the US "on all the existing agreements"
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    • A senior official of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) stated that funding for the missile defense systems would be cut as it was not the most effective method of thwarting attacks from North Korea. Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, a Lower House lawmaker who served as the party's deputy defense spokesman prior to its electoral victory added that "missile defense is almost totally useless1."

    The US Defence Department spokesman Geoff Morrell on September 9 asserted that the US decision through the 2006 bilateral agreement to reassign US troops in Japan will hold. H added that he expected Japan’s new government to continue to work with the US "on all the existing agreements we have in place2."

    Japan's incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on September 9 met with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister and top nuclear envoy Wu Dawei in Tokyo. Hatoyama and DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada, who is expected to be the next foreign minister, reaffirmed the importance of bilateral relations and agreed to take the relationship forward3.

    Meanwhile, Japan's top negotiator on the North Korean nuclear issue Akitaka Saiki told reporters after meeting his US counterpart Stephen Bosworth on September 7 that Pyongyang's recent diplomatic moves were "untrustworthy" in the background of its continuing nuclear weapons development4.

    In other domestic developments, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) announced that the election for a new party president will be held on September 285.

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