The Cabinet adopted a plan Friday to reorganize the government office tasked with expediting the disposal of chemical weapons left behind in China by the Japanese military at the end of the war.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said at a news conference that the government will increase the number of officials to deal with the issue of disposing of some 700,000 poison-gas shells and make a budget request for fiscal 2000 to carry out the project.
"The government has been sincerely working on the issue in line with the spirit of the Japan-China joint declaration and the Japan-China peace and friendship treaty, and has often sent research missions to China," Nonaka said. "With the adoption of the plan by the Cabinet, the government will launch the actual work of disposing of chemical weapons."