In an unprecedented development Wednesday, Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and Vice Foreign Minister Yoshiji Nogami were simultaneously dismissed for their failure to maintain an effective foreign policy team. This is the first time in the history of Japan's parliamentary Cabinet system that the foreign minister and the vice foreign minister have been simultaneously sacked during a Diet session. In this sense, it was a serious and dramatic event. But the reason for their dismissal was of such a shameful nature that it threatened to make them laughingstocks.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dismissed them after the debacle over the barring of two nongovernmental organizations from a recent international conference on Afghan reconstruction threatened to derail Diet debate over a crucial budget. The dispute exploded one week ago in the Diet when Mrs. Tanaka, Mr. Nogami and an LDP heavyweight, Mr. Muneo Suzuki, gave differing explanations over who was responsible for preventing the two Japanese NGOs from taking part in the conference in Tokyo.

In her parliamentary response, Mrs. Tanaka said that Mr. Nogami had told her the ministry barred the two NGOs, which had publicly criticized government policy on Afghanistan, under pressure from Mr. Suzuki, who once served as parliamentary foreign vice minister and has since kept influential ties with the Foreign Ministry. In subsequent testimony, Mr. Nogami contradicted the foreign minister by saying that Mr. Suzuki had not influenced the ministry's decision. Mr. Suzuki also denied any involvement, and in an apparent expression of his responsibility for his role in the fiasco, he offered to resign as chairman of the Lower House Steering Committee.

There was no way of learning the truth from the exchanges between opposition-party questioners and Mrs. Tanaka and her deputy. But ambiguous statements by Mr. Nogami and his aide obviously provoked suspicion among the opposition parties that Mr. Suzuki may have played a questionable role in encouraging those parties to intensify their offensive against the Koizumi administration and the governing parties.

A heightened sense of crisis over this development apparently prompted Mr. Koizumi to take action, even if belatedly, to settle the fiasco so that the Diet could resume its normal business. But he still deserves blame for his failure to take a decisive step sooner. The "family quarrel" within the Foreign Ministry was not new, with the ministry having been mired in an internal struggle for the past nine months.

It all started with discord between Mrs. Tanaka and her subordinates over the handling of an embezzlement scandal involving a secret diplomatic fund. The ministry took disciplinary actions against 16 officials -- to the dissatisfaction of Mrs. Tanaka who took office after those measures had been unveiled. Her attempt at taking tougher measures met with fierce resistance from ranking officials. The face-off continued afterward, even after Mr. Nogami took over from his predecessor as vice minister.

This unworthy dispute has damaged the Japanese public's confidence in the government and has also badly hurt Japan's international reputation. All Japanese people must regret the fact that the top-ranking ministry officials have tarnished the role Japan played in bringing the recent Afghan reconstruction conference to a successful end. The fiasco also highlighted the Japanese government's poor recognition of the positive contribution NGOs make to international society.

The dispute raised several important questions. Why have Foreign Ministry bureaucrats failed to keep up their traditional integrity (or is it that they do no longer possess such a quality)? Why do they yield to pressure (or verbal intervention) from politicians like Mr. Suzuki, who have no official position in the ministry? Moreover, many Japanese people felt that with their deliberate use of ambiguous expressions in their Diet testimony, the bureaucrats looked as though they were trying to pass responsibility on to the foreign minister -- the purpose, of course, was to shield Mr. Suzuki from any pressure.

But it is Mr. Koizumi who should be blamed most severely for all this. For months, he has remained a virtual observer. Of course, he has been bound by many concerns. For example, he must have feared that dismissing Mrs. Tanaka would encourage the anti-Koizumi intraparty factions to step up moves against him, and that his public popularity would have suffered a sharp decline. Note Mrs. Tanaka's contribution to the extraordinarily high popularity of his Cabinet. With Mrs. Tanaka gone, the Koizumi government will lose some dynamism. But he has to make up for the loss with stronger efforts to implement his policy pledges.