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Japan able to aid US ships under attack: minister
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) July 11, 2014


N. Korea condemns visit by US aircraft carrier
Seoul (AFP) July 12, 2014 - North Korea on Saturday condemned a port visit by a US aircraft carrier to the South as a "reckless" act of provocation following proposals by Pyongyang to ease cross-border tensions.

The USS George Washington arrived in the southern port of Busan on Friday for joint military exercises starting next week.

A spokesman of the Policy Department of the North's National Defence Commission (NDC) said the visit was "little short of its 'gunboat diplomacy' in the last century" and "in defiance" of the North's overtures.

"The US should properly understand that the more persistently it resorts to reckless nuclear blackmail and threat, the further the DPRK (North Korea) will bolster up its cutting edge nuclear force for self-defence", the spokesman was quoted as saying by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He said the exercises, taking place after the North reached out last week, were an "open challenge" to its efforts.

"Whenever there was a sign of improving the north-south relations and detente on the peninsula, the US resorted to sinister interference and obstructions", he said in reference to the upcoming drills.

The George Washington is scheduled to take part in joint exercises with the South Korean navy from July 16-21 as part of annual military drills, Seoul's Yonhap news agency said.

It will then participate in a search and rescue exercise with South Korean and Japanese maritime forces in waters off the southern island of Jeju for two days starting July 21, it said.

Last week the NDC called for both the North and the South to halt all hostile military activities -- a suggestion Seoul dismissed as "nonsensical" in the light of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea issued another call Monday for a lowering of military tensions with South Korea, even as leader Kim Jong-Un oversaw firing drills on an island near the sensitive maritime border.

A government statement carried by KCNA said it was time to end "reckless hostility and confrontation" and called on Seoul to scrap its annual joint military drills with the United States.

South Korea has repeatedly made it clear that the annual joint drills are non-negotiable.

Japan's new policy on military action would allow its forces to come to the aid of a US naval ship under attack, Tokyo's defense minister said Friday.

In a visit to Washington, Itsunori Onodera cited the hypothetical scenario as he sought to explain the Japanese government's controversial decision to ease decades-long restrictions on the country's military.

If US warships were sent to defend Japan, and those ships were attacked, the Japanese "constitution was interpreted to say we could not help that ship," Onodera told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

But taking action to assist an ally was "what an ally should naturally do," he said through an interpreter. "That's how this change in policy should be understood."

Onodera said the change approved by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet on July 1 would bolster Tokyo's alliance with the United States, opening the way to new forms of military cooperation.

"We believe this will dramatically deepen our ties with the United States," Onodera said.

Japan's decision to reinterpret its pacificist constitution has provoked anger at home as well as among its neighbors, with China expressing outrage and alarm.

The ground-breaking shift has come against the backdrop of soaring regional tensions with China over disputed islands.

But the United States has endorsed the change and at an earlier joint press conference at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel praised Tokyo's move.

"This bold, historic, landmark decision will enable Japan to significantly increase its contribution to regional and global security and expand its role on the world stage," Hagel said.

Washington has long encouraged Japan to go ahead with the change to permit Tokyo to share more of the burden in what has been a lopsided defense relationship.

The Japanese minister sought to counter criticism of the shift in policy, arguing it would enable Tokyo to better protect its population and deter potential adversaries.

Onodera also said Japan had increased defense spending for the first time in years and was improving its "world-class" missile defense system, setting up amphibious units and strengthening its "maritime forces" to "protect our islands."

The rise in defense spending has been seen as a bid to counter China's growing military muscle and assertive stance on territorial claims.

Onodera said Japan was always open to dialogue with China but if faced with "unilateral" actions, "we must respond firmly."

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Tuesday played down recent tensions with neighbour China, saying the countries were "inextricably linked" and his door was always open for dialogue. Tokyo and Beijing have long been at odds over islands in the East China Sea, with simmering distrust flaring last week after Japan relaxed restrictions on the use of its armed forces in a controversial change i ... read more


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