TOKYO: The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decided Friday to dispatch Maritime Self-Defense Forces members to the Middle East on a mission of strengthening information-gathering in order to help ensure sea lane safety in the region.

"We want to make our own contribution for safe navigation," Abe said the same day during the recording of a television program. He also said he is considering visiting the Middle East next month.

Basing the mission on the Defense Ministry establishment law's Article 4, which calls for conducting necessary survey and research, the government will newly send the MSDF's Takanami destroyer carrying patrol helicopters to the Middle East and convert the two P-3C patrol planes currently engaged in an antipiracy mission off Somalia for use in the new operations. The new mission will start in late January for the P-3C planes and in late February for the destroyer.

The government took the step of making a cabinet decision for the Middle East mission from the standpoint of "clarifying its accountability to the public," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference. "We will give careful explanations," he said.

The mission will be carried out in the high seas in the Gulf of Oman, the northern part of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden on the eastern side of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. Areas in the Strait of Hormuz, including Iranian territorial waters, will be excluded from the mission so as not to provoke Tehran.

After the cabinet decision, which followed a meeting of the National Security Council, Defense Minister Taro Kono ordered the MSDF to start preparations. Some 200 MSDF troops will be sent for the destroyer mission and about 60 for the P-3C mission.

While refraining from participating in a US-led coalition of countries aimed at ensuring safe navigation in areas around the Strait of Hormuz, Japan will dispatch a liaison officer to a US Central Command base in Bahrain to facilitate information-sharing. It also plans to cooperate with countries such as France and India, which are conducting surveillance activities separately from the US-led coalition.

The mission will run for a year from Friday to Dec. 26, 2020, and can be extended upon cabinet approval. The MSDF's activities in the Middle East mission should be reported to the Diet, Japan's parliament.

In the event of emergencies, including cases in which vessels related to Japan come under attacks, the MSDF members will be ordered to carry out maritime security operations to protect them, based on Article 82 of the Self-Defense Forces law.

Subject to protection under the operations will be Japanese-registered ships, and foreign-flagged ships carrying Japanese crew members, operated by Japanese companies or transporting Japanese cargo.

The cabinet decision also calls on the government to continue diplomatic efforts to alleviate tensions in the Middle East and build cooperation among the SDF, related ministries and agencies, and the shipping industry.

Some 4.7 billion yen will be earmarked under the government's fiscal 2020 budget to cover related expenses, including fuel and personnel costs. Each MSDF member taking part in the Middle East mission will be given a daily special allowance of 2,000 yen from the Defense Ministry.

JIJI Press