September 13, 2003	Saturday	Rajab 15, 1424

WASHINGTON, Sept 12: The United States, Australia, Japan and France began on Friday the first maritime exercise aimed at intercepting ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon said.

While the initiative in the Coral Sea north of Australia is not specifically aimed at North Korea, few doubt its target is the reclusive communist state, which Washington and others accuse of making clandestine shipments of drugs, counterfeit cash and missiles.

“The exercise began today (Washington time) and will be highlighted tonight (on Saturday in Australia) when a US Navy cargo ship posing as a vessel suspected of carrying WMD-related materials is boarded from a Japanese coast guard vessel,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

The controversial Coral Sea exercise is led by Australia and includes a combination of military and law enforcement assets from the four nations.

“The target ship, the US Navy maritime prepositioning ship Pvt. Franklin Phillips, is currently being tracked in the practice exercise by military forces from the four countries,” Davis said.

While the Pentagon spokesman said the exercise was not aimed at any particular country, 11 industrialized nations have joined in a US-led “Proliferation Security Initiative” to begin more closely watching shipping on the high seas to curb the movement of dangerous arms and technology.

The PSI group earlier issued a statement specifically naming North Korea and Iran as among nations suspected of proliferating dangerous technology.

The “Pacific Protector” exercise is the first of 10 planned in coming months but has raised concerns in China, and among legal experts, that the action may be illegal.

The seven other PSI signatories are Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. Some have sent observers to the Coral Sea exercise.

Speaking after a recent meeting of the 11 in Paris, top US arms control official John Bolton rejected concerns that the initiative, launched by US President George W. Bush in May, risked breaching international law.

Under international maritime law only ships believed to be engaged in piracy or the slave trade, or those sailing without nationality, can be forcibly boarded, according to Kevin Chamberlain, a specialist in international law and former deputy legal adviser to Britain’s Foreign Office.

But US and Australian officials have said that any actual interception on the high seas would be conducted within international and domestic law.

China last week questioned the legitimacy of the plan to intercept ships and even aircraft as part of efforts to halt the export of weapons of mass destruction.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan called for dialogue in lieu of interdiction or even interception in the air and at sea.

“We understand the concerns of some countries about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” Kong told a Beijing news conference when asked if China considered exercises planned by the group to be provocative.

“But many countries still question the efficiency and legitimacy of adopting this kind of measures,” he said said.—Reuters