Hosting US nuclear weapons 'completely unacceptable': Japan's PM

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday said it is completely "unacceptable" for Japan to make a nuclear sharing deal with the United States, spurning the notion of Japan hosting US nuclear weapons.

After a call by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a day earlier to discuss the option of nuclear sharing, Kishida said in parliament, "it is unacceptable given our country's stance of maintaining the three non-nuclear principles."

Japan has abided by its three principles of not producing, possessing or allowing nuclear arms on its territory, with the principles inspired by the devastating atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

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Kishida, whose constituency is in Hiroshima, is a proponent of non-nuclear proliferation and has vocally made his hope for a world free of nuclear weapons known.

On a TV program on Sunday about Japan's security environment as it relates to Russia's military moves in Ukraine, Abe was quoted as saying that "it is necessary to understand how the world's security is maintained. We should not put a taboo on discussions about the reality we face."

The former prime minister, who heads the largest faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, added, "as a country that experienced atomic bombings, we must uphold the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons."

Under their nuclear sharing arrangements, some non-nuclear members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation host US nuclear weapons.