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World - Asia/Pacific

Japan defense chief says ships chased by destroyers return to North Korea

March 25, 1999
Web posted at: 12:27 a.m. EST (0527 GMT)

TOKYO (CNN) -- Two unidentified ships that were chased by Tokyo destroyers out of Japanese waters have gone to North Korea, the head of Japan's Defense Agency said Thursday.

"The government has come to understand from information that it has received that the vessels have gone to a port located in northern North Korea," Hosei Norota, the director general of Japan's Defense Agency, told reporters during a news conference.

The Japanese government had asked Pyongyang on Wednesday to detain and hand over the ships and its crew if and when they entered North Korean waters.

The North Korean government has not responded to that request.

Japanese destroyers abandoned their chase Wednesday of the two ships after they fled toward North Korea and Tokyo officials feared further pursuit could escalate the situation.

The destroyers fired a number of warning shots at the vessels to try to get them to stop, but the ships continued onward.

It marked the first time Japanese defense forces had been ordered to take such action since World War II. The government said it ordered the unprecedented move because it believed the country's security was at risk.

The two boats -- said to be disguised as Japanese fishing boats -- were chased after they refused to acknowledge radio contact from Japan's Coast Guard and tried to flee the area in the Sea of Japan.

Questions, concerns

Japan on Thursday faced a number of crucial questions about its defense in the wake of the intrusion.

Media reports said the incident would prompt the government to review its defense system and likely also bills on changing U.S.-Japan defense guidelines.

NHK national television said the government would take a close look at current defense laws with a view to possibly revising them.

Regulations governing the seizure and search of ships as well as the use of arms are likely to come in for particularly close scrutiny, NHK said.

Japanese officials on Wednesday repeatedly said they could have done more in response to the ships, which masqueraded as Japanese fishing boats, under different laws.

The incident came as the government tries to get contentious bills to revise U.S.-Japan defense guidelines through parliament before Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi meets U.S. President Bill Clinton in May.

The contents of proposed government revisions to the bills had firmed by late Wednesday and appeared to suggest a slight softening of the government's stance on several points.

Key among these was limiting the need for parliamentary approval prior to any action to only those times in which Japan's Self-Defense Forces are dispatched to back up U.S. forces in "areas surrounding Japan," the daily Mainichi Shimbun reported.

The revisions also include specifying that such action would only take place within a framework specified by the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the Mainichi added.

The final point would allow Japanese ships to stop and search other ships even in cases where there was no United Nations regulation about such action if it fell within the context of cooperating with other nations to support an economic embargo, the Mainichi added.

Bitter wrangling on these and similar questions nearly derailed the formation of the current coalition government in January, and most observers expect a bruising fight to get the guidelines through parliament.

Japanese newspapers on Thursday had mixed responses to these questions.

The daily Yomiuri Shimbun, calling Wednesday's flight of the ships "laughable," said the incident had made the inadequacy of Japan's defenses glaringly obvious.

"It is essential to revise the laws quickly," it said.

But the Mainichi Shimbun questioned this, adding: "Why has the point suddenly become strengthening all parts of Japan's defense, rather than just beefing up its maritime patrols?"

Reuters contributed to this report.


RELATED STORY:
Japanese defense forces end chase of two unidentified ships
March 24, 1999

RELATED SITE:
Japan Maritime Self Defense Force
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