Navy's No. 2 officer meets Mori, promises efforts to raise ship

In an effort to soothe Japanese public sentiment and contain damage to bilateral ties, a U.S. special envoy visited Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Tuesday and promised that the U.S. government will do its utmost to salvage a Japanese vessel that sank Feb. 9 off Hawaii after being hit by a U.S. submarine.

Adm. William Fallon, the No. 2 uniformed officer in the U.S. Navy, offered "apologies and sincere regret" to Mori for the accident. Nine people aboard the Ehime Maru, a ship owned by a fisheries training high school in Ehime Prefecture, remain missing and are presumed dead after it was sunk by the USS Greeneville.

During their 30-minute meeting at the Prime Minister's Official Residence, Fallon promised Mori that the U.S. will make the utmost efforts to raise the Ehime Maru, a Foreign Ministry official told reporters. The missing are believed to be trapped inside the vessel, which sank to the seabed, about 600 meters down.