Minoru Kihara is a Japanese cabinet official. As Defense Minister in 2024, the Japanese Defense Ministry under his leadership shifted posture to treat unidentified aerial objects as security concerns, emphasizing the need to analyze and respond to incursions in Japanese airspace — a significant doctrinal change in japan’s UAP policy.
This shift preceded yoshiharu-asakawa’s May 2025 proposal and the japan-uap-parliamentary-group’s March 2026 proposal (src-japan-uap-strategy-proposal-2026-03).
Chief Cabinet Secretary (2026)
By May 2026, Kihara was serving as Chief Cabinet Secretary. On May 13, 2026 he confirmed at a Tokyo press conference that he had personally viewed the PURSUE Release 01 materials released by the U.S. department-of-war on May 8, and that Japan was reviewing the 161 files with U.S. and partner governments (src-japan-pentagon-uap-trove-reaction-2026-05). He cited the 2023 INDOPACOM dow-uap-pr47 infrared clip and a 2024 “football-shaped” object near Japanese airspace, and said any release of Japanese-held UAP footage would be evaluated case-by-case to protect intelligence sources.