INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
way.Ishiba will announce his new Cabinet later on Tuesday.Kishida took office in 2021 but left so his party could have a fresh leader after
his government was dogged by scandals
Ishiba plans to call a parliamentary election for Oct
27.Opposition parties criticized Ishiba for allowing only a short period of time for his policies to be examined and discussed in parliament
before the national election.Kishida had announced in August he would resign at the end of his three-year term.Kishida and his ministers
stepped down at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said
Kishida left his office after a brief send-off ceremony in which he was presented a bouquet of red roses and applauded by his staff and
He is expected to name defense experts Takeshi Iwaya as foreign minister and Gen Nakatani as defense chief.The majority of his Cabinet
ministers, like Ishiba, are expected to be unaffiliated with factions led and controlled by party heavyweights, and none are from former
reign.Ishiba has proposed an Asian version of the NATO military alliance and more discussion among regional partners about the use of the
He also suggested a more equal Japan-U.S
security alliance, including joint management of U.S
bases in Japan and having Japanese Self Defense Force bases in the United States.Ishiba outlined his views in an article to the Hudson
is no obligation for mutual defense
proposes combining of existing security and diplomatic groupings, such as the Quad and other bilateral and multilateral frameworks involving
the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the Philippines.He also noted that the Asian version of NATO can also consider
sharing of the control of U.S
nuclear weapons in the region as a deterrence against growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia.Ishiba on Friday stressed Japan
needs to reinforce its security, noting recent violations of Japanese airspace by Russian and Chinese warplanes and repeated missile
a nearly unbroken tenure governing Japan since World War II
in 1986, has served as defense minister, agriculture minister and in other key Cabinet posts, and was LDP secretary general under
