Kyodo News International March 26, 2014 8:59pm Japan, U.S. to conduct space-based maritime surveillance exercise

Kyodo News International March 26, 2014 8:59pm

Japan, U.S. to conduct space-based maritime surveillance exercise

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Japan and the United States will conduct a space-based maritime surveillance simulation exercise on Thursday and Friday in Tokyo, the Foreign Ministrysaid Wednesday.

Bringing together officials of relevantagencies from the two countries, theexercise will be the first of its kind, a ministry official said. It is part of bilateral space cooperation.

The official said the exercise does not target maritime activities of a specific country. But a source familiar with Japan-U.S. relations said the exercise apparently takes into account rising activity of Chinese patrol ships around the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and in the South China Sea where Beijing is locked in territorial disputes with neighboring countries.

Along with monitoring movements of Chinese vessels, the two governments are considering using the envisaged surveillance system to keep track of North Korean ships, crack down on smuggling and illegal fishing, and carry out rescue operations in the event of maritime accidents, according to the source in Washington.

In the exercise, the two governments are seeking to ensure they share data obtained by satellites each country operates and integrate information on signals from vessels, so as to upgrade their intelligence analysis from a broader pool of data, it said.

The exercise will involve officials of Japan's National Security Council, the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Japan Coast Guard and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Officials of the U.S. Strategic Command, the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security will take part, according to the source.

In a so-called "two-plus-two" meeting in October last year, the foreign and defense ministers of Japan and the United States "expressed their desire to improve maritime domain awareness by leveraging satellite capabilities and look forward to future whole-of-government exercises and dialogues" on space cooperation.

==Kyodo