AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
Japan plans to deploy imported unmanned spy planes in the fiscal year from April 2007, its defense chief was quoted as saying Jan. 12, amid growing concern over China and North Korea.
The planes could gather intelligence on missiles as soon as they are launched and monitor hostile vessels and planes, Kyodo News quoted Defense Agency Director-General Fukushiro Nukaga as saying on a visit to London.
Japan, which has been officially pacifist since World War II, is developing its own spy plane amid criticism that its policymakers are too dependent on U.S. intelligence on foreign military activity.
Japan needs at least a decade to produce its own spy planes but wants to put an unspecified number of them into use in the 2007 fiscal year, news reports quoted Nukaga as saying.
