U.S. officials and experts have expressed strong reservations about the plan to operate a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Aomori to recover fissionable plutonium while most of the nation's reactors remain shuttered, a Japan Atomic Energy Commission member said.
"It was an unprecedentedly severe reaction," Tatsujiro Suzuki, the commission's vice chairman, said Monday of U.S. officials' comments during his trip there earlier this month.
"I think this is because the Liberal Democratic Party stands firm to uphold a policy of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, and also because plans to operate the reprocessing plant are moving forward," Suzuki said.