In a high-level United Nations meeting on nuclear safety and security held Sept. 22, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda delivered a speech and said, "Japan is determined to raise the safety of nuclear power generation to the highest level in the world."
He also said, "Japan will disclose to the international community all the information related to this accident (at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant), in both a swift and accurate manner."
These points are quite reasonable in themselves. But it is regrettable that Mr. Noda did not use the meeting as an occasion to declare that Japan will phase out nuclear power. Instead, he said, "Japan stands ready to respond to the interest of countries seeking to use nuclear power generation" — an expression of his eagerness to push export of nuclear power-related technologies.