Japan Press Weekly

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2009 January 14 - 20 [SDF]

Government considering sending P3Cs to waters off Somalia along with destroyer

The Japanese government has begun considering sending the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s P3C maritime patrol aircraft along with a destroyer to the waters off the coast of Somalia on an anti-piracy mission.

MSDF destroyer will obtain information from the reconnaissance aircraft monitoring piracy acts. This will greatly help build up the operational capabilities of Japan’s naval force in violation of the Constitution.

If data obtained by Japan’s P3Cs is passed on to U.S. and other foreign warships, it would amount to exercising the right of collective self-defense and taking part in military operations other than anti-piracy missions.

The Defense Ministry suggests that if Japan sends P3Cs, they will need an airfield and a status of forces agreement to be concluded with a host nation, which is assumed to be Djibouti, Somalia’s neighbor.

Japan has procured more than 100 P3Cs between the 1970s and the 1990s in order to detect submarines of the former Soviet Union and defend U.S. Seventh Fleet ships. The MSDF has 95 P3Cs at present.