Abe Avoids Comment on Kake Head Press Confab

June 25, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declined to comment Monday on a press conference held last week by the head of Kake Educational Institution at the center of a favoritism scandal involving the Abe administration.

At the press conference on Tuesday, Kotaro Kake, head of the school operator and an old friend of Abe, denied that he met with the prime minister in February 2015 to discuss a controversial university veterinary school plan.

"I'm not in a position to comment on the content of the press conference," Abe said at a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament.

The Diet normalized business on Monday, breaking a stalemate that started after it voted Wednesday to extend its 150-day regular session by 32 days through to July 22.

The stalemate happened because the ruling camp tried to promote deliberations on key pending bills while the opposition demanded talks on alleged favoritism scandals involving the Kake group and Moritomo Gakuen, another school operator.

At the day's Upper House committee meeting, Abe again denied that he had a meeting with the Kake group head on Feb. 25, 2015, as stated in documents made by Ehime Prefecture.

The Kake group opened a veterinary school in April this year in a national strategic deregulation zone in Imabari in Ehime, the first such university department in the country in over 50 years.

Abe also said it is clear that there was no problem at all with the administrative process for the veterinary school.

Democratic Party for the People lawmaker Makoto Hamaguchi, who questioned Abe at the committee meeting, said the group head should be summoned for sworn parliamentary testimony.

Regarding the U.S. metal tariffs introduced in March, Abe stressed the importance of winning exemptions rather than taking retaliatory action.

Hamaguchi said U.S. President Donald Trump may urge Japan to make concessions in trade talks in exchange for his support for efforts to resolve the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens. Abe replied he has no intention at all to reach such a deal with the United States. Jiji Press