Health minister Chikara Sakaguchi called Friday on South Korean and other survivors' groups for help in implementing the government's plan to assist A-bomb survivors who live overseas.
"We cannot proceed unless we find out how many survivors live in each country," Sakaguchi said following a ceremony marking the 57th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki. "This assistance program is just the beginning. I'd like to call on you to support it."
The groups have criticized the government's plan to provide aid to A-bomb survivors living overseas so that they can come to Japan to receive medical treatment. They have called the program too restrictive in scope and application.
The groups have also called for changing the standards used to certify A-bomb survivors, saying they are "mechanical and unsuited to the realities."
"I understand the survivors' feelings, but the certifying process must be scientific and objective," Sakaguchi said.
"The process is not especially rigid."
Commenting on efforts to help the offspring of survivors, who are excluded from receiving aid under the Atomic Bomb Victims Relief Law, Sakaguchi said only that he will continue to offer them health checkups.
The checkups are meant to "study the causal relationship between illnesses arising from aging and the effects of radiation," he said.
An estimated 5,000 atomic bomb survivors live abroad and receive no aid from Japan, with an estimated 2,200 in South Korea, 900 in North Korea, 1,000 in the United States and 180 in South America, according to the health ministry.
The ministry began a new relief program for overseas A-bomb survivors in June under which it shoulders their travel expenses for visits to Japan for medical treatment.
It has been criticized, however, partly because the program requires the survivors, many of whom are quite old, to make a long distance journey overseas.