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TOKYO, July 6: Japan wants to develop a joint missile defence system with the United States as quickly as possible following North Korea’s missile tests, the Japanese defence chief said on Thursday.
“Along with the establishment of a surveillance radar network, we want to work with the United States to build an interception mechanism as soon as possible,” Defence Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga told parliament, as quoted by Kyodo News.
North Korea fired seven missiles on Wednesday, including a long-range Taepodong-2. All of them fell into the Sea of Japan, off the coasts of Russia and North Korea.
Japan is particularly sensitive to missile tests by North Korea, which in 1998 fired a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan into the Pacific, prompting Tokyo and Washington to step up cooperation to build missile defences.
Japan and the United States signed an agreement last month to allow them to jointly develop an advanced capability missile interceptor for the ballistic missile defence system.
MORE TESTS: A defiant North Korea acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that it had launched several missiles, vowed to carry out more tests and threatened to use force if the international community tried to stop it.
China, grappling with pressure from Washington over North Korea’s missile tests, said its top negotiator on the North Korean nuclear crisis would visit Pyongyang next week.
While China and Russia oppose sanctions on North Korea for the volley of missiles it fired off on Wednesday, the United States and Japan have closed ranks in the face of a UN Security Council split on the issue.
“The KPA will go on with missile launch exercises as part of its efforts to bolster deterrent for self-defence in the future, too,” North Korea’s official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
“The DPRK will have no option but to take stronger physical actions of other forms, should any other country dare take issue with the exercises and put pressure upon it.”
DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
South Korea’s defence minister told a parliamentary committee that an analysis of equipment and personnel being moved in and out of a missile-launch site in North Korea suggested the possibility of additional launches, Yonhap reported.
South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo cited a government official as saying the North might be looking to launch three or four more intermediate-range missiles. NBC News, citing unnamed US officials, said preparations seemed to be under way for a second Taepodong test, but the weapon was not yet at the launch pad.
Experts say it could take weeks to prepare a Taepodong-2 for firing. Tokyo said it did
not expect an imminent launch.—Reuters
