Tokyo seeks N-waste ‘understanding’

Press, 25 November 1981, Page 16

Tokyo seeks N-waste ‘understanding’

PA Wellington The Japanese Ambassador in Wellington. Mr Takashi Oyamada, has said there has been no change in Japan’s nuclear dumping policy; it would not do anything without gaining the understanding of the countries and territories concerned. Japan wants to make an experimental drop of 5000 to 10.000 drums of low-level nuclear waste in the Pacific midway between Japan and the Marianas, leading to a programme of dumping one to tw’o million drums every year on the site. An Australian Broadcast ing Commission report last week, through NZPA, said the Japanese ambassador to Fiji told the South Pacific Conference in Port Vila, Vanuatu, that the dumping would go ahead after an experimental programme was completed. He made the statement after the conference had approved a resolution calling

for the abandonment of proposals to. dump nuclear waste or test nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Similar resolutions were passed by the South Pacific Forum, the other regional grouping, in August. Mr Oyamada said he had not talked to his colleague in Fiji, but there was no change in the basic position of his Government. The experimental dumping would only begin. “after gaining the understanding of the countries and territories concerned. “If we do not get understanding, we will not begin. My Government has been sending scientists to the Pacific countries giving necessary information,” he said. Only in August the Science and Technology Agency of Japan had issued a reply to an American biologist's critique of the plan. "So we are trying to obtain understanding,” Mr Oyamada said.