Tokyo sends huge plutonium cache – enough to make 50 nuclear bombs – to US

Japan will send a huge cache of plutonium – enough to produce 50 nuclear bombs – to the United States as part of a deal to return the material that was used for research, reports and officials said Tuesday. The plutonium stockpile, provided by the US, Britain and France decades ago, has caused some disquiet given that Japan has said it has the ability to produce a nuclear weapon even if it chooses not to. Some 331kg (730lb) of the highly fissionable material will be sent by ship to a nuclear facility in South Carolina by the end of March, it was reported.

But we can’t comment on further details, including the departure date and route, for security reasons.

An official in the nuclear technology section

Japan is the only country to ever have been attacked with nuclear weapons, and under a 1967 policy it refuses to produce, possess or allow nuclear weapons on its soil. But in 2010 Tokyo admitted to previous secret agreements with the United States to allow American warships to carry nuclear weapons across Japanese territory and to take the arms to US bases on Okinawa island in an emergency. In 2006, then foreign minister Taro Aso sparked panic in neighbouring countries by saying Japan, a scientific superpower with numerous Nobel prizes to its credit, had the know-how to produce nuclear arms but opts not to.

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