Japan to deploy missile interceptors

Sat Dec 11, 2010

The Japanese armed forces are set to deploy advanced interceptor missiles at air bases as tensions continue to grow in the troubled region.

The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles system is designed to shoot down incoming missiles from the ground before they land, Kyodo News Agency reported on Saturday.

Sources say the move is apparently intended to counter the threat of North Korean ballistic missiles.

The developments come weeks after an artillery exchange between the South and the North resulted in the deaths of four South Koreans. North Korea has accused the US and the South of firing first.

In recent months, the US and South Korea have conducted several massive joint sea and air drills in the waters east of the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang has warned that the war games could bring the Koreas closer to the brink of war.

The North also accuses US President Barack Obama of plotting with regional allies to topple the country's government, insisting that its nuclear program is a deterrent against US forces in the region.

Japanese forces also plan to increase the number of submarines patrolling the seas off Okinawa, where most of the nearly 100 US facilities in Japan are located.

This is while Vice Defense Minister Jun Azumi has said that Tokyo should improve its defense capability in the southwest where it shares a maritime border with China.

"Our attention was on the north during the Cold War. But we have to shift our focus to the defense of southwest …The most important step to strengthen our defense over the next 10 years is to secure the mobility (of our troops)," Azumi told Reuters in an interview this week.

Relations have turned sour between the two countries since Tokyo arrested a Chinese boat captain near a chain of disputed islands in the East China Sea last month.

The captain was released later. However, the territorial dispute has sparked several protests in both countries.

The uninhabited islands, called the Senkaku Islands in Japan and the Diaoyu Islands in China, are close to key shipping lanes, have rich fishing grounds and are believed to contain oil deposits.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155029.html.