UpdateJapan’s biggest warship escorts US supply vessel on aircraft carrier strike group mission
It will be the first deployment – outside of troop exercises – to protect the US fleet after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expanded the country’s military capabilities in 2015
A Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force helicopter carrier joined a US Navy vessel in the Pacific on Monday for the first protection mission under security legislation that took effect last year.
The mission, ordered by Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, is apparently aimed at demonstrating the robust Japan-US security alliance and deterring North Korea from further conducting nuclear and missile tests.
The helicopter carrier Izumo, Japan’s largest postwar naval vessel, left Yokosuka base, southwest of Tokyo, in the morning and joined the US Navy supply ship off the Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, east of the capital.
It is expected to sail for two days in the Pacific toward waters off the Shikoku region in western Japan, government sources said.
The supply ship escorted by Izumo is likely to refuel other US vessels currently deployed in waters near Japan in anticipation of possible further missile test-firings by North Korea, as well as ships sailing with the US Navy’s aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, stationed near the Korean Peninsula, the sources added.