- As Russia threaten to seize U.S. property if compounds not returned: Report
Japan’s parliament has passed a one-off bill to allow Emperor Akihito to abdicate, the first emperor to do so in 200 years.
The 83-year-old said last year that his age and health were making it hard for him to fulfil his official duties.
But there was no provision under existing law for him to stand down.
The government will now begin the process of arranging his abdication, expected to happen in late 2018, and the handover to Crown Prince Naruhito.
Akihito, who has had heart surgery and was treated for prostate cancer, has been on the throne in Japan since the death of his father, Hirohito, in 1989.
In a rare address to the nation last year, he said he was beginning to feel “constraints” on his health which were making it hard for him to fulfil his official duties.
The emperor is constitutionally barred from making any political statements, so he could not say explicitly that he wanted to stand down as that would be considered comment on the law.
The newly passed law says that on abdication, the emperor’s 57-year old son, Naruhito, will immediately take the Chrysanthemum Throne, but that neither he nor his successors would be allowed to abdicate under the law.
The government is yet to set a date for the abdication, but the bill says it must take place within three years of the law coming into effect.
The handover is widely expected take place in December 2018.
In the meantime, Russia threatened to seize U.S. diplomatic property in Moscow and complicate life for an Anglo-American school unless Washington hands back two diplomatic compounds in the U.S. before July.
The daily Kommersant newspaper citing unnamed diplomatic sources, said that Moscow wanted the compounds back before a possible meeting at the G20 in Germany in July between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
If that did not happen, a sources said that Russia could retaliate by seizing a U.S. diplomatic dacha, or country house, in Serebryany Bor in north-west Moscow and a U.S. diplomatic warehouse in Moscow.
It said that Russian authorities could also complicate life for Moscow’s Anglo-American school by altering its legal status.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that Moscow was still waiting for the return of its U.S. compounds and could retaliate in kind if that did not happen.
In December, the former U.S. president Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russians over what he said was their involvement in hacking last year’s U.S. presidential election, allegations Moscow flatly denies.
The U.S. authorities seized two Russian diplomatic compounds, one in Maryland and another on Long Island, at the same time.
Moscow did not retaliate, saying it would wait to see if relations improved under the incoming U.S. president, Donald Trump.
According to the report, Moscow wanted the compounds back before a possible meeting at the G20 in Germany in July between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
Additional report from BBC
