Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi is to leave today for Ottawa to sign a global treaty banning antipersonnel land mines.
About 120 countries will participate in the signing ceremony, Foreign Ministry officials said. Japan was initially reluctant to sign the treaty as it considered land mines an effective defense for the country's long coastline. Japan is believed to have a stockpile of 1 million antipersonnel land mines.
Since he became foreign minister in September, Obuchi has been calling for support for the treaty for humanitarian reasons. After the ceremony, Obuchi will visit Washington through Sunday to meet with U.S. government leaders, the ministry officials said.
After the day's Cabinet meeting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kanezo Muraoka said it is necessary for Japan as a member of the international community to do all it can to assist humanitarian activities to remove antipersonnel land mines. "Providing further support to activities to remove land mines will be in line with one of our nation's basic policies of Japan contributing to enhancing world peace and stability," Muraoka told a regular press conference.
The government will export some mine-disposal devices necessary to conduct activities on condition that the use of the disposal hardware is strictly limited to conducting activities to remove antipersonnel land mines and the devices will not be transferred to a third nation without Japan's prior consent, Muraoka said.