Press Conference by the Chief Cabinet Secretary

JAPANESE

Opening Statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I have three items to report. First, I would like to report something not so much as the Chief Cabinet Secretary, but in my capacity as Minister of State for Okinawa and Northern Territories Affairs, regarding the issuance of multiple entry visas to Chinese individuals wishing to visit Okinawa for tourism. The Government has decided that from July 1 we will begin issuing multiple entry visas to visit Okinawa to Chinese individuals and their families on the basis that those individuals have sufficient economic means. This is the first time Japan has ever issued multiple entry visas for the purpose of tourism. We expect that this move will lead to an increase in the number of Chinese tourists who visit Okinawa and the further promotion of tourism in Okinawa. We do not intend to stop at only this measure, but will continue exerting every effort for the promotion of Okinawa's economy moving forward. Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeaki Matsumoto will be directly explaining the Government's decision on this measure to Governor of Okinawa Prefecture Hirokazu Nakaima when he visits the Prefecture tomorrow. For further details, please ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

Next I would like to report on the decisions regarding the members for the Nuclear Incident Investigation and Verification Committee. The selection of members for this Committee has been based on the three principles of independence, openness and comprehensiveness, and has been done in consultation with the chair of the committee. Nine members will be appointed to the committee, which when added to Committee chair Yotaro Hatamura, brings the total number of people to 10. Kazuo Oike, former President of Kyoto University and a specialist in seismology is among these members. With experience as Chairman of the Seismological Society of Japan (SSJ), we expect that he will be able to offer the Committee an expert opinion that includes an understanding of the causes of the earthquake and the tsunami and the countermeasures in place before this disaster struck. Shizuko Kakinuma is the Team Leader of the Carcinogenesis Risk Research Team of the Experimental Biology for Children's Health Research Group of National Institute of Radiological Sciences. She is a specialist on the effects of radiation, particularly on how low dose radiation affects children. She has also been handing phone consultations at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences since the onset of the nuclear incident, and thus has a good understanding of the perspectives of the general populace. Finally, with her experience as a wife and a mother, we expect that she will be able to offer opinions for the investigation from a wide array of perspectives. Yukio Takasu is a former diplomat with a deep understanding of international affairs. We expect he will make good use of his experience as former Ambassador of the Permanent Mission of Japan to the International Organizations in Vienna and Permanent Representative of Japan to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). We believe that he is the perfect choice to heighten the international nature of the Committee and international trust in its reports. Toshio Takano has a wealth of experience as a prosecutor at bodies such as the Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office. We expect that he will also be able to use his experience as a member of third-party organizations that investigate into scandals and other matters, including the Central Third-Party Committee to Check Pension Records. Yasuro Tanaka has experience as a former judge focused on criminal cases; his last post was as Chief Justice of the Sapporo High Court. We expect that he will lend a strictly impartial perspective to the committee. With the knowledge and worldliness of a lawyer, we believe that Yoko Hayashi is a perfect choice for the committee and expect that she will add a woman's perspective to the investigation. Michio Furukawa is the Mayor of Kawamata Town in Fukushima Prefecture. He is a member of a municipality comparatively far enough away from the nuclear power station to not have interest in nuclear power given that his Town did not receive financial support such as grants for the development of areas located near electric power stations. At the same time, he is Mayor of an area which has suffered a lot of harm due to being partially included in the Planned Evacuation Zones following this incident. We believe that these two perspectives make him a good choice for the Committee. Furthermore, Kawamata Town is a place that actively accepted evacuees from directly after the onset of the nuclear incident, and thus the municipality has experience not only as a disaster area but as an area supporting disaster areas. Kunio Yanagida is someone for whom I perhaps do not need to offer an explanation. He has a wealth of experience and superior knowledge regarding incident investigation, having participated in such investigations a number of times following incidents such as crashes of Japan Airlines aircraft or the derailment of a JR West train on the Fukuchiyama line in 2005. Hitoshi Yoshioka is the Vice President of Kyushu University and a specialist in the history and philosophy of science. He is a realistic specialist on atomic energy policy who does not call for the total abolition or total dominance of such energy. We expect he will lend an objective opinion to the investigation. For the first meeting of the Committee, we will be asking a senior prosecutor to head the Committee's secretariat, but moving forward we hope to quickly create a secretariat composed of a number of teams made up of specialists and bureaucrats responsible for conducting investigations under different themes. We will be opening the first meeting of the Committee as soon as possible after arranging the schedules of each member.

The third item I would like to report on has to do with the seawater injection issue which has been discussed since yesterday. I have told you that TEPCO informed us that the content of the report we received from them and reported to the public was incorrect. Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Goshi Hosono and I, as well as the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), asked TEPCO if there is any other information that it did not make public which it should have. We also asked that strict investigations be carried out to look into the veracity of reports and information released up until this point. In relation to this, Special Advisor Hosono has just reported me that there is apparently monitoring data taken from around the nuclear power station other than that which the Government has already received and released or that TEPCO has directly released. I have asked for this issue to be investigated and that information on it be compiled and released immediately. In addition, I have asked Special Advisor Hosono to give further stern instructions to TEPCO on the further investigation of matters like this to ensure there is no information that has not been released to the public.

Q&As

REPORTER: Concerning the monitoring data from around the nuclear power station you just mentioned - why has this data not been released before?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: Before information can be announced, the Government, or at least the senior staff of the Prime Minister's Office, including Special Advisor Hosono, must receive a report on it. No such report was made to them. I have instructed that a thorough investigation be made into the reasons and background of this.

REPORTER: In that case, are you saying that TEPCO had this information but did not report it to the Government?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: At the very least, information on this was not previously among the content of reports I received from Special Advisor Hosono. This is the first time it has been reported to either Special Advisor Hosono or me.

REPORTER: So is the monitoring data the exact values for inside the power station plus the surrounding area, or does it just cover one portion of the many monitoring operations? Or is it completely different - is it just detected values? I am asking about the preciseness of the data. What information have you heard about the quality of the monitoring posts?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I have not actually received a report on the exact data yet. I am reporting this to you as I believe we should make public the fact that such a report was made by TEPCO. I have issued instructions to investigate the causes, reasons and background behind this issue. Basically, directly after the earthquake on March 11, data was sent to the Prime Minister's Office. That data was released. Among it was data stating that some amount of microsieverts had been detected around the main gate of the power station. I have heard that the data in question now is a portion of this data - that the kind of data we are talking about is from one of the frequently undertaken monitoring operations.

REPORTER: Does this mean that among the many monitoring posts inside the power station only the data from a few of them have been reported up to now?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I have not heard even whether or not there were posts for which trials were not run.

REPORTER: By when did you instruct TEPCO to make their next report on this?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I have heard that a report was already made to Special Advisor Hosono that included concrete information related to this. I instructed that if there is any information that TEPCO can announce at one of its regular press conferences, it should.

REPORTER: Related to that, do you get the impression that they did not disclose the data because it shows values higher than reported in the initial data released?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I have not looked at or investigated the objective data myself, but I have heard that it is not necessarily the case that data was not disclosed because of the high values contained in it.. Not all of the data has been thoroughly checked yet. It may be announced at TEPCO's press conference today at 4:30pm. They may need a bit more time to prepare it. In any case, it will be announced within a day or two, so I hope that all of you will soon be able to check the data yourself.

REPORTER: I would like to ask about the handling of SPEEDI data, particularly soon after the earthquake hit. Between March 11 and March 16, NISA, the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) compiled 87 reports of trial data. These reports were not made public. I do not know whether data such as the monitoring data you just mentioned were utilized for the reports. Who bears responsibility for not announcing the data? Is it an organizational problem? Or was it decided to not make the data public after discussions with certain people? Any comment?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: Before we discuss that point, I think that we need to have a thorough investigation into why this data was not reported to any senior officials of the Prime Minister's Office, including me. Actually, we would like to have the Committee which I announced today undertake this investigation given their independence from the Government. I believe that the people of Japan are very interested in the points you raised, and so I think it would be best to have the matter investigated by a third party.

REPORTER: May I ask another question? It concerns information acquired over the course of an investigation we are doing. Within a report made by MEXT for the Diet, there is a sentence to the effect of 'The approval of the Prime Minister's Office is needed before information on the expected effects of radiation values can be announced." I take this to mean that it was the Prime Minister's Office that halted the announcement of SPEEDI data. Could we hear your opinion on that point?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: At the very least, as I have said many times before, the truth is that it was not even reported to us that simulations were being carried out. It was not until a few days after the earthquake that I was asked why we were not using SPEEDI, and it was then that I asked the question within the Government myself. And when I did so, as you all know, I was told that because we did not know the amount of radiation being released, and because SPEEDI is a system to run simulations on the effect of released radiation, it could not be used. That is when I asked if we could take data on radiation levels in surrounding areas and use it to calculate the amount of radiation being released. I believe that such reverse calculations were first done at the end of March. That was when we first announced the data. We received reports then. That was when I, or any other government official, first saw any results of SPEEDI simulations. As for the radiation value measurements that you mentioned, the reports that a simulation of these had been done only emerged around the middle or end of April. As soon as I heard these reports I instructed that the information on hand be made public immediately.

REPORTER: So in the end, what do you think of your responsibility toward those who evacuated to areas in which higher levels of radiation have been reported - in other words, those who evacuated to more dangerous areas?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: In the end, I think that during the period in which high levels of most radiation was being released, the wind was blowing toward the northwest right? This means that it was blowing toward places such as Iitate Village, where radiation levels are still high. I think that when undertaking venting operations or other such exercises during which we intentionally released higher amounts of radioactive materials, we should naturally have been able to calculate the wind direction and estimate which areas would face higher risks. I think it is really unfortunate that we are talking about under what circumstances and at what time high levels of radioactive substances were released after everything has already been done. Accordingly, with regard to evacuations as well, if the wind direction had remained stable we could have calculated it from the beginning perhaps. However, we issued the instruction that those within a 20-30km radius evacuate the areas or stay indoors in order to avoid the risk that the incident cause harm to human health no matter what the wind direction was. At the same time, we strengthened monitoring operations in the northwest with the consideration that the wind might move during even times when we expected a large amount of radioactive substances to be released from the power station. We began discussing at an early stage the establishment of Planned Evacuation Zones in the northwest and other matters based on those monitoring operations.

REPORTER: Returning to the previous topic of monitoring data and TEPCO, I suspect there is other data that TEPCO has not released. I would like to hear your opinion about this possibility.

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I would like to say that there is no such data. But I also feel that I must earnestly accept the criticism that the Government has not been able to further collect and organize information during this time. Under the current situation in which these matters are coming out one after another, we cannot respond to the issues based on the premise that we have all the information. There is sufficient reason to believe that it is possible there is other data TEPCO has not released. I think that we will need to get some concessions from TEPCO on this, and I plan to further push for such concessions myself.

REPORTER: With regard to the issue of the monitoring, I imagine that you still do not know the details, but do you think that if the Government had known the results of this monitoring from the beginning there could have been a possibility that the response at the time might have been different? Also, in the case of the injection of seawater at the power station it turned out that a fax had in actual fact been sent to a Government body. Do you think that in the case of these monitoring results there is also a possibility that a report was received by fax or other means, but in the midst of the large quantities of data and information coming in it was missed and ended up not going up the communication chain?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: With regard to your first question, it will be necessary to precisely analyze the content of the data that has come to light and therefore I am not in a position to make a decision about whether the response would have been different. With regard to your second question, although you may have something to say about my choice of words, I would say that the possibility "is not zero," but we will naturally engage in an investigation to see whether or not the Government actually received this data. The data that TEPCO has reported to Special Advisor Hosono on this occasion that has not yet been disclosed is very important data and the Government will be disclosing it immediately without waiting for the results of the investigation about whether or not it was received initially.

REPORTER: Until now you have stated that the Government will disclose all information that it receives and I believe that with the repeated emergence of new data, the credibility of the Government could be called into question and further strengthen suspicions that information is being concealed. What are your views on this point?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: Since the start of this incident I have repeatedly stated in this press conference that the highest priority is to bring the incident under control and ensure that damage can be minimized, and I have engaged in these press conferences based on my own conviction that it is important that information pertaining to the incident should be fully reported to the public without anything being withheld. Accordingly, I have sought to respond to all questions in this press conference and provide details based on the information that I have been aware of and received, and have repeatedly checked to see that all relevant bodies are providing such information. Regrettably a situation in which information has not been released has been repeated on a number of occasions that has led to a loss of public confidence. This issue is not on the same severity as the incident itself, but it represents a serious issue for the nuclear power administration in Japan as a whole and is something we should consider earnestly.

REPORTER: With regard to your announcement concerning multiple visas for Chinese nationals visiting Okinawa. When you say Chinese nationals with "sufficient economic means," on what sort of annual income are your calculations based? This visa system is the first of its kind in Japan, so what has prompted the Government to implement it at this time?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: With regard to the first part of your question, please inquire with the MOFA for details as it is MOFA that is the implementing body for this measure. From my position as Minister of State for Okinawa there was a desire to implement this measure for the purpose of the promotion and revitalization of Okinawa, which was also echoed by local sentiment, and I had engaged in negotiations with MOFA and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, requesting that this measure be actively promoted. There are many issues to consider with such visa programs, including security perspectives and others. MOFA has engaged in this measure at the working level and is engaged in coordination towards implementation, based on the understanding that it will not be problematic and that it will furthermore be useful for the revitalization of Okinawa.

REPORTER: Following the disaster there has been a noticeable tendency for domestic manufacturers to move their production bases overseas as a means of responding to the risk of supply chain disruption, resulting in concerns of the hollowing out of domestic industry. What policy measures do you think will be required to respond to this situation?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: From an early stage directly following the earthquake and tsunami the Government has been working on a response to this very important issue, given the possibility that supply chain problems can lead to hollowing out of industry. Currently it is the case that factories are unable to operate and are also having difficulty in procuring components, and the Government seeks to provide the maximum degree of support to private sector companies, to enable them to recover and restart operations and make efforts to minimize the hollowing out effect that would result from the inability to procure components. In addition, from a mid- to long-term perspective, although it may be unavoidable for companies to engage in a certain degree of risk diversification, efforts are being made to ensure that relocation for the purpose of risk diversification is to other locations within Japan rather than overseas, so as to minimize the overall hollowing out effect. From another perspective it is the case that it has been the Tohoku region that has been worst affected by the disaster and companies that only had facilities in the Tohoku region are seeking to relocate operations to western Japan and other regions to diversify risk. To ensure that these moves do not result in the hollowing out of industry in the Tohoku region, the Government is currently engaged in the preparation of policy-based inducements that would attract companies located in other areas of Japan to diversify risk by relocating part of their operations in the Tohoku region.

REPORTER: I believe that the Reconstruction Design Council should be expected to issue a proposal on such matters, but it seems to be rather weak in this area. What are your views?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: The Reconstruction Design Council is composed of experts possessed of great knowledge and insight and the Government is consulting these members, who will consider reconstruction initiatives and compile a proposal accordingly. The Government will of course take the contents of such a proposal with the utmost seriousness and I expect that a number of challenges and issues will be incorporated. However, at the same time, the basic concept for the Council is to consider ways to reconstruct the regions that have been directly affected by the disaster and such a proposal will not be able to fully cover all matters. It is for this reason that the Council on the Realization of the New Growth Strategy was recently restarted and this council will engage in discussions on measures that are not limited to the reconstruction of the disaster areas in the Tohoku region, but encompass other measures, including ways of preventing the hollowing out of the Japanese economy.

REPORTER: Returning to the issue of the monitoring data, given that this issue has emerged it would seem that the Government-TEPCO Integrated Response Office is not able to share information effectively. There seem to be a number of issues with the current structure and I wonder if you could provide a comment about whether you think the Government is fully in command and executing governance over TEPCO in the forum of the Integrated Response Office?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I believe that the Government should keenly feel its responsibility to monitor the overall situation, particularly in light of the fact that information and reports that should have been disclosed by TEPCO did not reach the Government. However, while in the first week following the disaster it may have been understandable that there would be confusion in the provision of information and data that should be reported and disclosed, it is now more than two months since the incident and the Government will be asking harsh questions of TEPCO as to why information is being hurriedly released on various issues, including the injection of seawater, and will disclose the facts pertaining to the situation to the public.

REPORTER: On a related note, I get the impression that there was a rush to get the data out right before the Nuclear Incident Investigation and Verification Committee was launched. That is, I am skeptical about whether or not TEPCO released the data at the last minute, before TEPCO was questioned by the Nuclear Incident Investigation and Verification Committee. On the other hand, I believe that had this committee been launched even earlier, this kind of information would have come out into the open more quickly as the verification got underway. Thus, I believe that there is also this other dimension to this issue, that is, whether or not the Government was too slow to launch the Nuclear Incident Investigation and Verification Committee. What do you think?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I believe there are probably a variety of opinions on the timing of the launch of the Nuclear Incident Investigation and Verification Committee. At the very least over the first several weeks following the disaster, the circumstances required that we devote our full energy into stabilizing and controlling the situation before we could move onto verification. After that, on the question of at what stage the committee could be set up, we too had urged that the earlier the possible, the better it will be. However, we felt that the people would have higher expectations for the committee if we fully ensure that it is independent from not only the committee members - TEPCO or the usual nuclear power-related government agencies and the nuclear power industry, but also from the Government. And furthermore, we had to ask people with skills and insights to become committee members. In this context, it ultimately took until today to be able to decide and announce the members.

REPORTER: Along with this issue of TEPCO not releasing the information, there was also the issue from yesterday regarding the seawater injection. In that respect, it seems that TEPCO was hiding some information. Maybe this is a separate issue, but if these problems continue, could they affect the Government's assistance policy in terms of the compensations?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: The assistance scheme for the compensations which the Government decided on recently is not intended, originally, for backing up TEPCO or supporting TEPCO. The purpose of the scheme is to provide minimum assistance to achieve the following three objectives: 1) Take all possible measures to ensure that compensation is paid out to all those who were affected; 2) Ensure that stakeholders who are making efforts to bring the nuclear incident under control are not affected, especially subcontractors and partner companies; and 3) Assure a stable supply of electricity. Since the scheme is originally not intended to aid TEPCO itself, I do not believe there will be any direct effects.

REPORTER: About the issue of the monitoring data, does TEPCO's decision to release the data now have anything to do with the ongoing investigations of the IAEA?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: Regarding your question, I believe Special Advisor Hosono may speak about that during his press conference today at TEPCO, etc. if he has anything he can share. It was just a moment ago, after 3:30pm, that Special Advisor Hosono briefed me about what I just reported today. Since this is an important matter, I made the report because I judged that even the facts that I am aware of should be shared immediately. As to why TEPCO was hiding the information, how it was hiding the information, and why it decided to release the information now, I have not been briefed about this.

REPORTER: I believe this is also a grave situation for the Kan administration. Have you briefed the Prime Minister?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: That is what I am doing after this. As I said a moment ago, I was briefed by Special Advisor Hosono after 3:30pm, close to 4:00pm. At the same time, just prior to this press conference, I briefed Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Kaieda. From the perspective of the administration system, I believed it would be odd in many ways for me to publicly share this information when Minister Kaieda was not aware. Therefore, it was really just before 4:00pm that I briefed Minister Kaieda and told him that I will go ahead and tell the public. While it is also important to brief the Prime Minister, I believed it was important to first share the minimum facts with the people. Naturally, I believe the people are in many ways skeptical about whether the Government is also hiding any information. In order for the people to get a sense, even a little bit, that that is not the stance that the Government is taking, I believe it is better if the length of time that the Government is aware of something which the people are not aware is shortened by even a little bit. That is why I made the announcement.

REPORTER: Since the incident occurred, as far as the way that you have presented information, I get the impression that you have, upon considering the balance between the speediness of disclosure and the close investigation on the information, been weighing more on the side of calling for speedy disclosures. Do you feel in any way that because of this, there have been instances in which not enough close investigation was done, and that this has caused some confusion? Or do you feel that perhaps this cannot be helped when prioritizing speediness? Your thoughts?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I feel that there are two types of information. There is objective and clear-cut data, and then there are the matters for which facts cannot be objectively and universally made clear, such as the recent issue regarding seawater injection. These issues require that a certain amount of time be set aside to verify and organize the information. I have been repeatedly saying at these press conferences as well as to all relevant personnel that as far as objective data is concerned, we must disclose it in its entirety at once. Of course, if there are matters for which memories must be verified, or issues that require speculation and projections, for these we must make certain decisions on how much accuracy we must first achieve before disclosure. There cannot be cases in which we share a projection that is not certain but give the wrong impression that it is one that is highly accurate. For such matters, I believe - how should I put it - some form of checking is necessary. But, as I said at this morning's press conference, to know how much accuracy we need before we can announce or disclose matters is something, to be honest, that I have agonized and struggled over throughout the last two months. However, objective data, such as what we are dealing with here, is something that really does not require any form of decision. Therefore, I believe it is a matter of course that we disclose such data as soon as we receive it. Having found out that this has not been taking place, I feel very apologetic toward the Japanese people and very angry toward TEPCO.

REPORTER: Regarding the issue explained by you at the beginning regarding the granting of visas, you said that the target for this is China, am I correct in understanding that this is not for all countries but is limited to China? If it is limited to China, please explain the reasons for this.

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: If I am not mistaken, Japan, too, has certain countries with visa exemptions, tourists visas, etc., and the question of what form of entrance is approved or what kind of visas are issued depends on the situation of each target country. At present, particularly when taking into consideration our work toward the promotion of the Okinawan economy and the fact that China's economic power is growing, and in light of other issues comprehensively, we came to the conclusion that we should create an environment that makes it easier for those in China with interest in sightseeing around Okinawa to go there, and that this will lead to the development of Okinawa. When a request was submitted to consider this matter, the Government came to the conclusion that there should not be any problems with this. That is how the decision was made.

REPORTER: On a different topic, at today's chamber's plenary session, the Japan-ROK Archives Treaty, under which Japan is to hand over to South Korea certain documents from the Korean Peninsula including Uigwe, the Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty, was passed and approved by a majority vote of the DPJ and others. What is your take on this matter? Also, I believe this issue was strongly promoted by former Prime Minister Hatoyama, Prime Minister Kan, and the DPJ. Please share your sense of the significance of this fact?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: This is an issue that was carried over from last year, and so I feel that I would like to have seen it approved a bit sooner, but I do welcome the fact that it was approved by the Diet. Between Japan and the Republic of Korea, there are issues such as this one that the two countries have been moving forward in a positive and constructive manner. At the same time, there are other unfortunate matters such as the Takeshima issue. I believe that we must work hard to overcome the pending issues that exist between us while moving forward with those matters that can be pushed easily in a positive direction.

REPORTER: One more question. Under the current unstable situation in the Korean Peninsula, do the recent efforts have significance with regard to strengthening Japan-ROK relations? Are they therefore related to security of our country? How do you see this matter?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: I think it would be misunderstanding the situation to see this effort as being done with the sole purpose of improving the security situation. However, I see Japan and the ROK, as well as the United States, as three friendly countries with a common foundation of similar government systems and social structures that can work together further in the future. As I mentioned earlier, I have the hope that such countries have the ability to proceed constructively and in a positive manner despite pending issues, and as a result such developments will have positive effects for Japan as well as the East Asian region, including with regard to security.

REPORTER: You said at this morning's press conference that the disaster in Tohoku had no bearing on the Prime Minister's ability to dissolve the Diet. What about the reconstruction effort and the Prime Minister's ability to resign?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: This is a matter that I have not given any thought to at all. I do not believe I need to answer hypothetical questions.

REPORTER: Have you already appointed the members of the Nuclear Incident Investigation Committee?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: Ultimately, as it needs to be an entity independent of the Cabinet, I believe we need to formally hand over a document of commission or something like that. If there is the need to hand over necessary materials and documents simultaneously as the secretariat is being established to the committee members, then I would like to do so as soon as possible.

REPORTER: About the aforementioned cultural properties such as the Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty, when exactly are you thinking of handing them over?

CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY EDANO: As this was a matter approved by the Cabinet today, I expect that from now respective Foreign Ministries will coordinate this. There have not been any concrete reports on this made to the Prime Minister's Office or to me at this point.