Japan plans to assist other Asian nations in controlling exports of products and technologies that could be diverted for the development of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and chemical arms, to help keep them out of the hands of terrorists, government officials said Sunday.
The officials said Tokyo is planning to host seminars for officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to urge them to strengthen their export control systems, which are said to have loopholes.
Tokyo will also seek their understanding and support for the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an international framework to restrict expansion of missile-related technologies, they said.
High-level missile technologies allow users to more precisely guide nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to their targets.
Tokyo expects ASEAN members to impose full controls over exports of such equipment and materials and to stop supporting countries that are developing missiles without MTCR supervision, they said.
While most ASEAN members currently have technologies and materials for weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the Philippines is of particular concern due to domestic threats from a terrorist organization with alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Bin Laden is the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.
Tokyo is therefore prepared to assume a key role in barring terrorist access to such technologies and materials, as well as promoting nonproliferation of these technologies and equipment, with the eventual goal of including most Asian nations in the MTCR framework, they said.
On the nonproliferation of multipurpose technologies and materials, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed Tokyo's readiness to cooperate for its achievement at a summit of ASEAN and its three Northeast Asian partners in November in Brunei.