Tokyo, Dec 8 (AFP) Japan plans to purchase offensiveair-to-surface missiles to counter North Korea's risingmilitary threat, its defence minister said today, a movelikely to stir debate over its decades-long pacifist policy.
Itsunori Onodera said the ministry intends to requesta special budget for the fiscal year starting April 2018 topurchase long-range cruise missiles deployed on fighter jets.
According to local media, the ministry plans to buyJASSM and LRASM long-range, air-to-ground missiles with arange of some 900 kilometres from US firms.
It also plans to buy Joint Strike Missiles with arange of some 500 kilometres from Norway's Kongsberg Defenceand Aerospace, news reports said.
The move will likely draw controversy as Tokyo haslong maintained an exclusively defence-oriented policy underits pacifist constitution, which bans the use of force as ameans of settling international disputes.
But Onodera insisted his ministry will continue touphold the policy, telling reporters: "We will introduce themas standoff missiles that allow us to deal with our opponentsfrom outside the range of threats." Japan's military policy has been restricted to self-defence and relies heavily on the US to attack enemy territoryunder the Japan-US security alliance.
US President Donald Trump had caused consternationduring his White House campaign by suggesting allies such asJapan need to do more to defend themselves, although sincetaking office Trump and his diplomats have offeredreassurances of support.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toldparliament that North Korea's missile tests were an "imminentthreat" to Japan and talking to the reclusive state wasmeaningless.
The upper house unanimously adopted a resolutionprotesting against the North's firing of an intercontinentalballistic missile that dropped into the sea inside Japan'sexclusive economic zone last week.
Global anxiety about North Korea has steadily risenthis year, and Washington last week called on other UN membersto cut ties with Pyongyang in order to squeeze the secretiveregime.
The call, however, has fallen short of persuading keyNorth Korean backers China and Russia to take steps to isolatethe regime. (AFP)KUN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.