Japan can legally be allowed to possess nuclear arms, gov't says

Japan can legally be allowed to possess nuclear arms as long as they are at a "necessary minimum" level for its self-defense, the government said Tuesday. The cabinet made public the view in a position paper in response to a written question by House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki.

From a purely legal standpoint, the paper said the war-renouncing Constitution "does not necessarily ban the country from possessing any weapons, even though they are nuclear ones, if they are the necessary minimum for self-defense." But the paper also says that Japan will never possess nuclear weapons, noting that the country maintains the decades-long three-point nonnuclear policy that bans Japan from possessing and producing nuclear weapons as well as from allowing such arms to be brought into its territory.