Former state minister Kosuke Ito on Thursday denied claims that he arranged a meeting between the head of a property developer accused of selling earthquake-vulnerable condominiums and senior officials of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry on Nov. 15, two days before the ministry revealed the building-code violations.

Ito, a ninth-term Lower House member of the Liberal Democratic Party, said, "I don't think so" when a reporter asked him if he arranged the meeting between Huser Ltd. President Susumu Ojima and ministry officials.

Ito served as director general of the National Land Agency from November 1996 to September 1997 under then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. The National Land Agency is now part of the land ministry.