Japan Urges US to Allow Its Involvement in Ship Collision Probe

Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono has sent letters to US leaders demanding that Japan participate in investigations into a collision between a Japanese fisheries training ship and a U.S. nuclear submarine off Hawaii on February 9, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

In his letters dated Saturday, Kono also urged U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to allow the Japanese government to take part in the salvage of the sunken Japanese trawler Ehime Maru.

Kono said the families of the nine Japanese missing after the accident urged a thorough investigation of the tragedy and that the 499-ton ship be raised when he met them on Thursday together with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, the ministry said.

Kono also asked Powell and Rice to arrange for the relatives of the missing to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush.

Ehime Maru from Uwajima Fisheries High School in Ehime Prefecture, southwestern Japan, was sunk when the 6,080-ton submarine Greeneville surfaced underneath it, leaving nine people, including four 17-year-old students, missing.

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