Japan’s defence minister on Friday ordered missile defence systems to be prepared so the military could shoot down a North Korean long-range rocket if it threatened the country.
“I have ordered officials to prepare to deploy the PAC-3 and Aegis warships,” Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka told reporters, referring to surface-to-air missiles and destroyers carrying missiles.
“We are talking to relevant local governments about the deployment,” he added.
The surface-to-air interceptors would reportedly be deployed on Japan’s southern Okinawa island chain, but any order to shoot down the North Korean rocket would first need the approval of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
The nuclear-armed North has announced it will launch a rocket next month to put a satellite into orbit, a move which the United States and its allies see as a pretext for a long-range missile test.
Japanese officials have said the projectile may pass over Okinawa.
The preparations by Japan, regularly the target of North Korean barbs, come as world leaders including US President Barack Obama meet in Seoul next week for a nuclear summit, officially focused on nuclear terrorism.
But the North’s atomic programme is also expected to be debated on the sidelines of the talks.
In 2009, Japan ordered similar missile-defence preparations before Pyongyang’s last long-range rocket launch, which brought UN Security Council condemnation and tightened sanctions against the isolated communist state.
The rocket, which North Korea said was also aimed at putting a satellite into orbit, passed over Japanese territory without incident or any attempt to shoot it down.
