JAPAN: Tokyo residents wake up to a battery of Patriot missiles on their doorstep as Japan ramps up its preparations for a North Korean rocket launch expected next week
Record ID:
466200
JAPAN: Tokyo residents wake up to a battery of Patriot missiles on their doorstep as Japan ramps up its preparations for a North Korean rocket launch expected next week
- Title: JAPAN: Tokyo residents wake up to a battery of Patriot missiles on their doorstep as Japan ramps up its preparations for a North Korean rocket launch expected next week
- Date: 7th April 2012
- Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (APRIL 7, 2012) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF JAPANESE DEFENCE MINISTRY SIGN READING IN JAPANESE "MINISTRY OF DEFENCE" PAC-3 MISSILE LAUNCHERS IN GROUNDS OF DEFENCE MINISTRY VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS PATROLLING AROUND LAUNCHERS CHERRY BLOSSOM LAUNCHER BEHIND BARBED WIRE FENCE MISSILE HATCHES ON END OF LAUNCHER SOLDIER OPENING BARBED WIRE FENCE STREET IN CENTRAL TOKYO PEOPLE WALKING STREET SIGNS ABOVE STREET (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) UNIDENTIFIED TOKYO RESIDENT, SAYING: "I understand they want to protect Japan, but putting them in Tokyo's going a bit far, isn't it?" (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) UNIDENTIFIED NEWSPAPER DELIVERY MAN, SAYING: "It's conceivable the satellite, the missile or whatever, could shoot right over our heads here. So it's hard to put into words really." STACK OF NEWSPAPERS NEWSPAPER DELIVERY MAN GETTING ONTO MOPED MORE OF LAUNCHER BEHIND BARBED WIRE FENCE MORE OF MISSILE TUBES VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS REFUELLING LAUNCHER MORE OF LAUNCHER
- Embargoed: 22nd April 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Japan, Japan
- Country: Japan
- Topics: Conflict,International Relations,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA61X2C1ZTA8P92Y3ZCL8COP2JK
- Story Text: Patriot missiles rolled out into central Tokyo on Saturday (April 7), as Japan put the finishing touches to its land-based defence systems ahead of North Korea's planned rocket launch later this month.
Last week Japan began deploying Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) ground-based interceptors to islands in the country's southern Okinawa prefecture.
North Korea is expected to launch the rocket in that direction some time between 12-16 April.
But taking no chances, military chiefs have also deployed two PAC-3 launchers to central Tokyo, and others to bases near to the capital, bringing the country's deployment of the land-based interceptor system to a close.
Protests against the deployment have so far been minimal and focussed on Naha, the capital of Okinawa prefecture.
At the crack of Saturday, opinion on the streets of Tokyo was mixed.
"I understand they want to protect Japan, but putting them in Tokyo's going a bit far, isn't it?" one Tokyo resident told Reuters on Saturday morning.
"It's conceivable the satellite, the missile or whatever, could shoot right over our heads here. So it's hard to put into words really," a newspaper delivery man said.
Japan is also deploying three Aegis radar-equipped destroyers carrying Standard Missile-3 interceptors to the sea between Japan and South Korea and the East China Sea.
Pyongyang says it is merely sending a weather satellite into space, but South Korea and the United States claim it is a disguised ballistic missile test. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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