Japan Defense Chief Says Unreasonable to Spend $1.8Bln to Fix Aegis Ashore Technical Issue

TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2020) Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono said on Tuesday that the deployment of the US Aegis Ashore missile defense system in the country was no longer reasonable, as it would cost the budget some $1.86 billion to fix the technical issues that caused Tokyo to scrap the plan a day earlier.

On Monday, the Japanese government announced the suspension of the plan to roll out the land-based Aegis Ashore missile defense system in the country, since there is no guarantee that the rocket booster of an interceptor missile launch will fall within a Japanese Self-Defense Force training area.

"The government promised that the rocket booster would fall precisely within the training area and has to be responsible for this. However, it is unreasonable to additionally spend 200 billion Yen [$1.86 billion] and 10 years to ensure security given the limited budget," Kono told parliament, as quoted by the NHK broadcaster.

According to Kono, engineers initially thought that the trajectory of the rocket booster fall could be adjusted by software changes, but later it became clear that expensive modifications of the defense system itself are required.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, on his part, said that the decision to suspend the Aegis Ashore deployment would not harm the relations between Tokyo and Washington.

In December 2017, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved plans to install two US-made Aegis Ashore missile defense units, each costing approximately $900 million, in response to ballistic missile tests conducted by North Korea. The two components were expected to cover the entire country and enter into service before 2023.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it sees the move as a de facto deployment of the Asia-Pacific segment of the US global missile defense system and a threat to the balance of regional security.