Abe Confirms Tokyo's Demand for Explanations From US About Spying

Tokyo will continue to call on the United States to provide an explanation for the information contained in the WikiLeaks revelations concerning US National Security Agency (NSA) spying on the Japanese government and businesses, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday.

TOKYO (Sputnik) – On Monday, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced that the country was waiting for the United States to comment on a series of secret NSA documents detailing US eavesdropping on 35 Japanese targets, including high-ranking officials, leaked last week.

"If the information [on the interception] is confirmed, it will be extremely regrettable for [our] allied states. We will continue demanding a clarification of the situation," Abe said at a session of a special committee of the upper chamber of the parliament, as quoted by the Kyodo news agency.

The NSA's telephone interception target list included Japanese Cabinet members, the Central Bank, as well as the finance and economy ministries, Mitsubishi’s natural gas division and the Mitsui conglomerate’s petroleum division.

Japan is the latest NSA spying target among US allies to be uncovered by WikiLeaks. The revelation follows recently published documents, which revealed the agency's surveillance of the telephone conversations of high-ranking French, Saudi and German officials.