Communications minister Ryota Takeda admitted Thursday that he dined in November with executives of a Japanese telecom giant, but denied violating an ethics code for ministers that bans them from being wined and dined by sectors under their jurisdiction.

Takeda said in parliament he had joined a dinner whose participants included Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. President Jun Sawada and Noriko Endo, an independent director of NTT Docomo Inc. But he said the dinner "was not a violation of the ethics code because I did not receive any specific request or demand from the participants."

His admission of attendance at the dinner came a day after the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun posted a report online about the Nov. 11 event.

Takeda told a House of Representatives committee he stayed for less than an hour, drank two or three glasses of beer without eating, and paid 10,000 yen ($92).

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry and NTT have been recently hit by a hospitality scandal in which Sawada treated senior officials of the ministry to lavish meals.

Takeda had repeatedly said during questioning by opposition lawmakers over the scandal that he would not accept invitations to dinners or meetings "which could raise suspicion among the public."

The minister said he was invited to the dinner by Central Japan Railway Co. Chairman Emeritus Yoshiyuki Kasai, only learning of Sawada's presence after arriving at the venue, and mostly spoke with Kasai while there.

NTT said Thursday it did not invite Takeda to the dinner and that Sawada had been invited by JR Central. "(The dinner) was planned for private companies to discuss the issue of space-related business and we did not make any request," it added.

At the time of the gathering, an NTT tender offer to make NTT Docomo a wholly owned subsidiary was under way.

==Kyodo

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