KCNA Commentary Slams U.S.-Japan "Defense Cooperation Guidelines"

Pyongyang, May 13 (KCNA) -- The U.S. and Japan have recently revised the "defense cooperation guidelines".
    The guidelines specify operations of the U.S. forces and the Japan "Self-Defense Forces" (SDF), their intelligence sharing, logistic support and sharing of their roles in contingency.
    What is noteworthy is that they have been revised under the pretext of coping with the DPRK's military "threat" and "provocations".
    They were laid down in 1978 for the first time, presupposing "invasion by the Soviet Union." They were revised in 1997 under the pretext of coping with the ballistic missiles of the DPRK, contingency on the Korean peninsula, etc.
    This time the U.S. and Japan cited the DPRK's military "threat" including its ballistic missiles as major pretexts for revising the guidelines.
    The U.S. secretary of Defense and Japan's minister of Defense in a joint press conference blared that they needed a new level of alliance to cope with diverse security threats including provocations of north Korea.
    This is no more than shameless rhetoric aimed to cover up the real nature of the tightened alliance for aggression and war.
    The guidelines are a product of the scenario of the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries to carry out their strategy for stifling the DPRK and invading Asia through their military nexus.
    The gravity of the guidelines is to expand the sphere of overseas military operations of the SDF.
    The guidelines call for expanding the sphere of joint military operations of the SDF and U.S. forces worldwide by revising the geographical conception of "situation in surrounding areas" as the "situation exerting major influence" which poses potential threat to peace and security of Japan.
    They allow Japan to dispatch SDF anytime in contingency on the Korean peninsula for joint military operations with the U.S. forces.
    The U.S. secretary of Defense said the core of the new guidelines eliminated the geographical limit to the U.S.-Japan military cooperation, adding that cooperation between the two countries would escalate into internet and space.
    The revised guidelines would result in increasing the danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and putting peace and security in Northeast Asia at great peril.
    They make it possible for the SDF to openly advance into the peninsula in a bid to realize its ambition for overseas expansion under the zealous patronage of the U.S.
    The structure of confrontation in the region including the peninsula is gaining in depth and the danger of a new arms race and military conflict is increasing due to the war policy pursued by the U.S. and the policy of Japan, its ally.
    Those who revised the guidelines had better drop their short-sighted way of thinking.
    The alliance for war will bring nothing but disaster. -0