We’ve kept to treaty: U.S.

Press, 21 May 1981, Page 8

We’ve kept to treaty: U.S.

NZPA Tokyo The United States Government, trying to defuse a row over allegations that its Navy had brought nuclear weapons into Japanese ports, told Japan yesterday that it had faithfully honoured provisions of the United StatesJapan Mutual Security Treaty. A United States Embassy statement said the ambassador (Mr Mike Mansfield) told

the new Japanese Foreign Minister (Mr Sunao Sonoda) that the United States would continue to honour its commitments under the 1960 treaty. But American officials said the ambassador did not tell Mr Sonoda whether United States warships based in Japan or calling at Japanese ports were armed with nuclear weapons. The statement said Mr

Mansfield “reconfirmed that the United States Government policy was neither to confirm nor deny the presence or absence, of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world.” The row erupted after a former United States Ambassador, Edwin Reischauer, said in a press interview that United States Navy aircraftcarriers and cruisers carrying nuclear weapons had stopped at Japanese ports.

Mr Mansfield told Mr Sonoda that Mr Reischauer, • who served in Tokyo for five ; years from 1961 and is regarded by the Japanese as an expert on their country, was now a private individual with no official capacity. Mr Reischauer’s allegation appeared to counter the principle of successive Japanese Governments that no nuclear weapons should ever be “introduced” to Japanese terri-