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LEAD: Japan not satisfied with U.S. beef report+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, Feb. 20_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: RECASTING WITH NAKAGAWA'S COMMENTS) Japan views the U.S. report released Friday on its probe into a shipment last month of banned bovine material and measures to prevent a recurrence as "insufficient" and plans to make a range of inquiries with Washington, farm minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Monday. It will thus take several days before Tokyo finalizes its response to the report, in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture admitted a flaw in the U.S. inspection system for beef exports to Japan and vowed to take various measures to prevent a repeat of the incident, Nakagawa said. The agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister spoke of Japan's initial response to the report after visiting Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at his office to brief him on the contents. "I reported that the contents are insufficient for the Japanese side," Nakagawa told reporters after talking with Koizumi. Koizumi was quoted as telling Nakagawa that Tokyo will deal with the matter "in a proper fashion." Dissatisfied with both the U.S. investigation into the cause of the shipment containing bovine backbone and the steps it will take to prevent it happening again, Japanese officials plan to quiz the U.S. side, he said. On Friday in Washington, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns released the report into the veal shipment containing backbone -- a specified material banned under a bilateral agreement as a mad cow disease risk -- which was detected Jan. 20. In a press conference, Johanns reiterated his regret and apology for failing to comply with the agreement with Japan, but again stressed the shipped beef posed no safety risk according to U.S. standards on mad cow disease. The U.S. government is expected to send USDA officials to Japan soon in order to explain their preventive measures and try to start negotiations to lift the import ban, but Nakagawa only said, "The U.S. side is free to do so." On whether Tokyo will lift the import ban on American beef it reinstated Jan. 20, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said in an earlier press conference, "The government has yet to decide when to resume imports of U.S. beef." "The beef import ban will be lifted again only after the United States implements measures to prevent American firms from exporting banned materials and reassures Japanese consumers about the safety of the beef they sell," Abe said. |