HIROSHIMA - Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday failed to explicitly pledge that Japan will maintain its nonnuclear principles, simply saying the government "is upholding" the long-held policy, as the country marked the 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
At a press conference after attending a memorial ceremony in the western Japan city, Takaichi said Japan will promote "realistic and practical" efforts toward a world without nuclear weapons.
Takaichi took part in the annual memorial ceremony for the first time as prime minister. Her government is reportedly considering rethinking the three principles of not possessing, producing or allowing nuclear weapons in Japan as it plans to revise a set of key national security documents by the end of this year.
"It's premature to comment on the final form of the wording as we are in the middle of work to revise the documents before year-end," Takaichi told reporters after the ceremony.
"However, it remains unchanged that Japan firmly upholds the three nonnuclear principles in the direction of its policy," she said.
Recent prime ministers, including Shigeru Ishiba and Fumio Kishida, said in their speeches at the annual ceremonies marking the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and Nagasaki on Aug. 9 that Japan will maintain the nonnuclear principles.
But the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi's political mentor, refrained in his 2015 address from referring to the principles.
