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‘U.S. denies rescue of Japanese in event of war on Korean Peninsula’

‘U.S. denies rescue of Japanese in event of war on Korean Peninsula’

Posted June. 17, 2014 06:20,   

한국어

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe excessively pushed for conditions for deployment of its Self-Defense Forces, an issue that Tokyo even failed to win consent from Washington, as he pushed to implement collective self-defense right, it has been newly revealed.

The Asahi Shimbun reported on Monday that the U.S. is effectively denying Japan’s request to rescue Japanese in the event of physical conflict on the Korean Peninsula. If this report proves to be true, Abe’s central agenda, which suggests "Japan should exercise collective self-defense right to protect U.S. military ships carrying Japanese fleeing from war in the event of warfare on the Korean Peninsula’ will lose ground.

According to the daily, when the two countries of the U.S. and Japan revised in 1997 the U.S.-Japan defense cooperation guidelines, which define distribution of roles between the U.S. military and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, the U.S. agreed to add transportation of noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) designed to transport Japanese people taking refugees in return for Japan providing backup assistance to the U.S. military in the event of a situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Nevertheless, Japan enacted an act on situations in neighbors the next year to specifically define the areas of cooperation by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces based on revised guidelines. The U.S. strongly demanded NEO be excluded from the act. The reason cited was that when the U.S. military rescues its citizens overseas, there are four levels of priority, namely U.S. citizens, U.S. green card holders, British citizens and others, and the rescue of Japanese is categorized into “others’ item," which comes as the last.