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Hashimoto resignation statement

Text of statement by Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto at a Tokyo news conference on July 13 announcing his resignation, as broadcast by Japanese television:

Following the outcome of yesterday's upper house election, I conveyed my intention to resign as party president at the party executive committee meeting just a while ago, and the committee approved my resignation.

The responsibility for the defeat in the latest upper house election rests entirely upon myself.

In place of a joint plenary meeting of party members of both houses of the Diet, I plan to have the party's General Council, as the party's supreme decision-making body, hold a meeting tomorrow, during which I will report on the executive committee's approval of my resignation.

I wish to apologize for putting you through various hardships for such a long time.

That is all I have to say.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

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