Japan warned of N-disaster

Press, 21 January 1983, Page 6

Japan warned of N-disaster

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Moscow yesterday warned Japan that it could face a retaliatory strike more devastating than the 1945 atomic bomb blasts if it agreed to the deployment of more weapons aimed at the Soviet Union.

The warning was included in a Tass news agency commentary . on remarks made by Mr Nakasone in Washington that Japan should become an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Tass said that Mr Nakasone’s comments showed Japan was assuming a much greater role in American military planning and that it would pose an increasing threat to the Soviet Union.

"By deploying on board the (unsinkable) aircraft carrier arsenals of armaments, in-

eluding American, the authors of such plans make Japan a likely target for a retaliatory strike,” Tass said. “For such a densely populated, insular country as Japan, this could spell a national disaster more serious than the one that befell it 37 years ago.” In August 1945 the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit by American atomic bombs.

The agency also made it clear that the Soviet Union was already strengthening its own defences in the Far East in response to new American and Japanese military deployments. A build-up of arms in the Japanese archipelago had forced Moscow “to adopt measures to offset the emerging danger,” it said.