The 3rd Meeting of the JFIR Policy Council on "Japan's Response to Global Terrorism" was held on October 18, 2010, under the chairmanship of President ITO Kenichi of JFIR and 16 members of the Policy Council attended.
At the outset, after the full text of the "Interim Draft of the 34th Policy Recommendations on 'Japan's Response to Global Terrorism'" was recited by the secretariat, Chairman ITO introduced "Comments" by HASHIMOTO Hiroshi and ITO Kenichi, both members of the Policy Council, and then stated that "the Interim Draft is quite divergent in its message compared with those of all the other policy recommendations deliberated in the past. I would like to summon all reserves of wisdom of the Council to make the message of the draft more lucid and coherent so that it stands as policy recommendations."
In the deliberations among members of the Council present, although numerous opinions were voiced, the overall discussions remained divergent and lacked directions. Then, Chairman ITO stated that "we have not yet reached any coherent view on such fundamental question as to whether the issue of 'war on terror' is relevant to Japan at all and, if so, how she should be related to it. As I already mentioned, although the policy recommendations is about to proceed from the 'Interim Draft' to the 'Final Draft', there is no consensus on its even basic stance. This is a case totally unseen in the history of the deliberations on the policy recommendations of JFIR. As Chairman of the Policy Council, I have profound apprehension about the situation." Then, Chairman ITO proposed to consult with the Council as to whether the deliberations on this theme of the policy recommendations should be continued or discontinued.
In response to this proposal, several members of the Council evidenced their approval to continue the deliberation and announce the policy recommendations, affirming that terrorism is one of the gravest threats to peace and stability of the 21st century world and is quite relevant to Japan, that JFIR should produce policy recommendations on this issue by all means, and that each item proposed in the draft is significant in view of the current situation Japan is in, and is not to be wasted.
As the majority of the opinions raised approved of announcing the policy recommendations, Chairman ITO reiterated that the significance of the policy recommendations lies in its claim that Japan should exert its utmost efforts, as a member of the 'no-war community' to eradicate the gravest threat in the post-post-Cold-War era of global-terrorists coming by weapons of mass destruction and resorting to use of them. Then, Prof. YAMAUCHI Masayuki, Drafter of the Policy Recommendations, stated that he would explicitly demonstrate the "threat of terrorism lurking in everyday lives," leave the definition of "terrorism" at referring only to its ubiquity and impartiality, refrain from going into details of regional case studies of terrorism and cut off minor details in referring to Israel, Chechen or Iraqi war. And Prof. MIYASAKA Naofumi, Assistant Drafter of the Policy Recommendations, stated that it would be easier to draft the policy recommendations when focusing on counter measures against proliferations of WMD such as nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.