LDP, DP to hold Diet talks over scandal

August 4, 2017

TOKYO- The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the main opposition Democratic Party agreed Friday to hold off-session deliberations in the Diet, Japan's parliament, on Thursday to discuss allegations of a cover-up of daily logs on Ground Self-Defense Force troop operations in South Sudan.

The agreement was reached at meetings of the two parties' Diet affairs chiefs in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, and the House of Councillors, the upper chamber.

The off-session deliberations will be held at the Lower House Security Committee and the Upper House Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The ordinary Diet session was adjourned in June.

At the day's Lower House meeting of Diet affairs chiefs, Kazunori Yamanoi of the DP requested the summoning of former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada to give unsworn testimony during the off-session deliberations. But Hiroshi Moriyama of the LDP refused the request.

The LDP apparently hopes to have new Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera answer questions about the cover-up scandal so that Inada will not have to testify.

"Public frustration at the administration of (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe comes from its habit of cover-up," Yamanoi told reporters, criticizing the LDP's response.

Meanwhile, Onodera told a press conference, "Bearing public suspicions deeply in mind, I'd like to respond to questions wholeheartedly."

"I'll take responsibility via proper engagement in Diet deliberations," Onodera added.

In December last year, the Defense Ministry rejected requests for the disclosure of the daily logs in question, saying that they had been discarded. In January, however, it was found that electronic data on the logs were stored at the GSDF. Jiji Press