Japan, S Korea need to resolve radar issue swiftly: Kono


The foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea agreed Friday that a recent radar lock-on issue needs to be resolved swiftly by their defense authorities.

"Minister Kang and I shared the view that defense authorities need to discuss the (radar) issue based on facts and resolve it at the earliest possible date," Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters after holding phone talks with his South Korean counterpart Kang Kyung Wha.

South Korea on Friday released a video of the radar incident, repeating its demand that Japan stop "distorting" the truth and apologize for a low-altitude flyby by one of its patrol planes.

The release came after the Japanese Defense Ministry also made public a video clip of the radar lock-on incident on Dec 28 to back up its claim that South Korea used the radar intentionally.

The video, posted on video-sharing service YouTube, is 4 minutes and 26 seconds long and summarizes the claims made by Seoul so far. Among the claims is that the MSDF's P-1 surveillance aircraft flew so low that it was threatening to the crew of the ship.

"Japan will have to stop distorting the truth and apologize for a low-altitude flight over our ships that were on a humanitarian rescue mission," Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun Soo said in a briefing recorded on Dec 28 but only released in the video Friday.

The ministry contends in the video that had the radar been locked on the plane, the plane should have taken maneuvers to evade the situation but that instead it approached the warship again, an action it says defied common sense.

"The purpose of today's disclosure is to inform (the public of) the correct facts as distorted truth has reached netizens all over the world after Japan's unilateral release of video footage," Choi said.

The spokeswoman said the video will soon be translated into foreign languages.


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