“I was worried about the impact on the upper house election, so I decided to resign.” Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma handed in his resignation Tuesday afternoon, following the public outcry sparked by his remarks made Saturday which seemed to justify the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo accepted the resignation.

“I have caused Nagasaki citizens a great deal of trouble, and since I don’t seem able to get their understanding, I feel sorry and I feel obliged to take responsibility by quitting,” the Nagasaki-native minister said at a press conference held the same day, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

The minister had caused uproar Saturday when he, during a lecture at Reitaku Universty in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, said: ”I understand the bombing brought the war to its end. I think it was something that couldn’t be helped”.

Hyogo-native Yuriko Koike, Special Advisor on National Security in Abe’s Cabinet (54) has been chosen to replace Kyuma as Defense Minister. Koike was previously Minister the Environment in Koizumi’s Cabinet.

Kyuma apologized and retracted his controversial comments Sunday, and PM Abe tried to dampen the criticism by reprimanding Kyuma, but the wave of criticizm did not cease. Nagasaki A-bomb survivors commented: “The resignation was natural”, “I’d like to see him apologize directly to the a-bomb survivors”. Terumi Tanaka, head of a national A-bomb survivor’s group, questioned the minister’s earnesty: “I wonder if he really regrets what he did. Considering the fact that it took several days before he chose to resign, I find that hard to believe. It’s apparent it’s all about the election”.

Three opposition parties, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the smaller People’s New Party (PNP) were planning to formally demand the minister’s dismissal on Tuesday, the Nagoya mayor Tomohisa Ueta handed Kyuma a stern protest letter, Nobel-prize laureate Kenzaburo Oe said the comments were “criminal” and protest marches were held in Nagasaki, but what tipped the scale, some suggested, was when prominent lawmaker Toshiko Hamayotsu in the ruling coalition’s junior partner New Komeito called for Kyuma to go voluntarily.

Kyuma became Defense Agency director-general in September 2006, as Abe’s new cabinet took office. When the agency was upgraded to ministry status in January 2007, Kyuma became Japan’s first defense minister. Kyuma has previously created problems for Abe’s Cabinet by critisizing the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq.

121 of the upper house’s seats will be up for grabs in the July 29 upper house election. Abe’s LDP and their coalition partner New Komeito need 64 seats to keep majority control. Abe’s popularity is already plunging after a government agency said it can’t identify 50 million pension records, and following the suicide of farm minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka in May. In an Asahi Shimbun poll, his approval rate was down to 28 percent during the weekend (30% in a Mainichi Shimbun poll), a rating that can only be expected to sink even further.

“Abe should have taken more severe measures against Kyuma from the beginning, but he tried to support him”, Tomoaki Iwai, a professor of political science at Nihon University in Tokyo, told Bloomberg. “It’s a big blow to Abe … I think the damage is pretty substantial. It’s better for Abe that Kyuma resigns than not, but it’s a bad story for Abe,” Gerry Curtis, a Columbia University political science professor told Reuters.

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