Aug 13 01:07 PM US/EasternTOKYO, Aug. 14 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Defense Minister Yuriko Koike's proposal to appoint a former police agency officer as her deputy was rejected by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki on Monday, despite her threat to resign if her proposal was not accepted, government sources told Kyodo News.
The closely watched appointment of a successor to Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya will not likely be made until after the Cabinet reshuffle scheduled for Aug. 27, the sources said.
Moriya began serving his fifth year in the post this month, an unusually long term in office for a top bureaucrat in the ministry, which was upgraded from a governmental agency in January.
In a meeting with Shiozaki on Monday, Koike presented her plan to name as vice minister Tetsuya Nishikawa, a former National Police Agency official who is now serving as the chief of the Defense Ministry's secretariat.
Koike was quoted as telling Shiozaki, "I would like to appoint new personnel to coincide with the reorganization of the Defense Ministry on Sept. 1." The upcoming reorganization will feature the dissolution of the Defense Facilities Administration Agency.
Shiozaki rejected her proposal, saying, "Vice ministerial appointments are supposed to be decided at a conference of chief and deputy chief Cabinet secretaries but no advance notification was given (to the conference) prior to news reports emerging, badly shaking the decision-making system for personnel," the sources said.
"A decision should be made under a new defense minister after the Cabinet reshuffle," Shiozaki was quoted as telling Koike. "This is a general agreement of all four people who serve as chief and deputy chief Cabinet secretaries."
Behind Shiozaki's position are growing calls from inside the ministry to appoint someone from the ministry as Moriya's successor, the sources suggested.
The sources said Koike hinted at stepping down from the post if she fails to have Nishikawa succeed Moriya, telling Shiozaki, "I thought Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had approved (the idea of) appointing Mr. Nishikawa. I have my own determination and will communicate it to the prime minister."
After the Koike-Shiozaki meeting, the sources said their clash showed that efforts to name Moriya's successor have become deadlocked and the matter should be decided from scratch following the Cabinet reshuffle.
Koike earlier this month decided to have Moriya retire in September and let Nishikawa succeed him, hoping he would take a grip on control of intelligence in the ministry, which has been hit by a spate of information leakage scandals including those involving high-tech Aegis destroyers.
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