Top SDF Officer calls on S. Korea to be cool-headed

January 24, 2019

Tokyo--The top uniformed officer of Japan's Self-Defense Forces called on South Korea on Thursday to be cool-headed over a recent Sea of Japan incident involving a Japanese patrol airplane and a South Korean warship.

The call from Adm. Katsutoshi Kawano, chief of staff at the SDF Joint Staff, came a day after the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said that a Japanese SDF airplane made a "threatening" flight near a South Korean naval ship in the East China Sea earlier on Wednesday, a similar claim to its argument on the Sea of Japan incident.

At a press conference on Thursday, Kawano said that in the East China Sea case the SDF plane flew at a safe altitude and kept a safe distance from the South Korean ship, as in the Sea of Japan case.

Over the Sea of Japan incident last month, Japan has protested that its patrol aircraft was exposed to the fire-control radar of a South Korean destroyer.

"We don't want to have further arguments with the South Korean side," Kawano said. "We hope that the South Korean side takes cool-headed action." Jiji Press