Global Security Newswire

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday said he would like to see Japan approve sales to other countries of jointly developed missile defense technology, Kyodo News reported (see GSN, July 26).

"Obviously, the more flexible Japan is in this area, they make more opportunity, they create for all of us, in terms of helping other friends and allies," Gates told journalists while traveling to a meeting with NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium (see related GSN story, today).

Washington remains interested in having Tokyo ease its decades-old prohibition on exports of domestically produced weapons technology and armaments to foreign nations other than the United States. The Obama administration is interested in making the Standard Missile 3 Block 2A interceptor, which the United States developed with Japan, available to European partners (see GSN, Aug. 2).

Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa in talks Monday with Gates in Vietnam voiced his willingness to ease the trade restriction policy.

Gates told journalists yesterday he knew the weapons embargo was sensitive matter for Japanese politicians.

"The issue itself is, as far as I am concerned, (an) internal Japanese matter," the U.S. Defense chief said.

Following the Gates-Kitazawa meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said his government "does not have any intention to change the basic idea" of the weapons policy (Kyodo News/Mainichi Daily News, Oct. 14).