TOKYO • Japan could legally intercept a North Korean missile headed towards Guam, Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said in remarks reported by Kyodo news service..
TOKYO • Japan could legally intercept a North Korean missile headed towards Guam, Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said in remarks reported by Kyodo news service.
Mr Onodera told a committee of Parliament’s Lower House yesterday that Japan would be allowed to hit a missile headed towards the US Pacific territory if it was judged to be an existential threat to Japan, Kyodo said. This is a reiteration of the Japanese government’s position.
North Korea first fired a missile over Japan in 1998, prompting the Japanese government to initiate its current ballistic missile defence system with the US. While a second attempt failed in 2005, North Korea again succeeded in launching one in 2009 that flew over northern Japan and continued for another 3,000km before landing in the Pacific.
More recently, North Korean missiles have landed in the Sea of Japan, with some falling in Japan’s exclusive economic zone that stretches as far as 200 nautical miles from its shores.
Japan passed legislation two years ago allowing it to come to the aid of another country in certain circumstances, under a reinterpretation of its pacifist Constitution. Mr Onodera told Parliament that an attack on Guam would fall under that legislation because of its importance to Japan’s own defence.
