Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday that Japan should break a long-standing taboo and hold an active debate on nuclear weapons ¨C including a possible ¡°nuclear-sharing¡± program similar to that of NATO ¨C in the wake of Russia¡¯s invasion of Ukraine.
¡°Japan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has its three non-nuclear principles, but it should not treat as a taboo discussions on the reality of how the world is kept safe,¡± Abe said during a television program.
Abe, who quit as prime minister in 2020 but remains highly influential as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party¡¯s largest faction, noted that had Ukraine kept some of the nuclear weapons it inherited after the breakup of the Soviet Union instead of exchanging them for a security guarantee, it may not have faced an invasion by Russia.
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