JAPAN - The government is poised to abandon previous denials and admit that part of the Foreign Ministry's classified diplomatic fund was "confidentially diverted" in the past to the Prime Minister's Office for financing undisclosed activities, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

However, the government will not divulge precisely how much money was diverted.

Successive governments before the launch of the Democratic Party of Japan-led administration last year had persistently denied any cash from the fund was transferred to an account of the Prime Minister's Office.

But in a written statement that will be submitted soon to the Diet, the government will say no money from the secret fund has been funneled to the Prime Minister's Office since Prime Minister Yukio Hato-yama's administration was launched and that the office has no plan to use the confidential cash, according to government sources.

The statement was approved by the Cabinet on Friday.

The classified fund was used for confidential diplomatic activities, including information gathering and wining and dining foreign guests at diplomatic establishments outside Japan.

There have been long-standing suspicions that the confidential fund might have been diverted since the revelation in 2001 of several scandals involving the misuse of the fund by Foreign Ministry officials.

In a news conference after the Cabinet meeting, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said the admission was aimed at making the administration more transparent.

"There's been a shift in power and we believe it's right to call a spade a spade," Okada said.

The Public Finance Law stipulates that each government ministry and agency is banned from transferring any portion of its budget for funding activities of other government organizations.

However, Okada refused to be drawn on whether the diversion of the secret fund might have violated the law.

The government "doesn't necessarily deem the diversion of the confidential fund to the Prime Minister's Office as illegal," he said.

About 5.5 billion yen (61.5 million dollars) was earmarked for the confidential diplomatic fund in fiscal 2000, but the budget has been steadily whittled down following scandals involving the secret fund in 2001.

The fund received about 2.7 billion yen (30.2 million dollars) in the draft budget for fiscal 2010.

This article was first published in The Yomiuri Shimbun/Asia News Network.