Steve Quayle News Alerts

January 22, 2003
Yomiuri Shimbun

The government has started studying plans to evacuate Japanese residing in or visiting South Korea in the case of tension on the Korean Peninsula increasing due to North Korea's nuclear development program, government sources said Tuesday.

The government will ask the United States and South Korea to hold talks with Japan about the plan as cooperation from both countries will be essential for such operations to be carried out successfully, the sources said.

Tokyo, Washington and Seoul are continuing to seek a peaceful resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue.

However, the government faces an urgent task in devising evacuation plans for the more than 30,000 Japanese in South Korea in an emergency situation.

Currently, there are about 17,000 Japanese permitted to stay for three months or longer in South Korea, and an estimated 16,000 Japanese mainly in Seoul each day on short trips.

According to the sources, the government plans to advise Japanese in South Korea to leave the country voluntarily should an emergency be anticipated.

But the new plan will mainly address a situation in which North Korea launches a surprise military attack on the South.

According to the sources, the government already has devised the following elements to its plan:

-- If North Korea attacks South Korea, a full evacuation must be completed within 70 hours.

-- Japanese in Seoul--the city that is expected to be the main target of an attack by the North--need to be transported by train, bus or other means to southern parts of South Korea, where it is relatively safe.

-- Japanese standing by in the south of the country will be transported by helicopter to Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels waiting in international waters.

-- The government will ask the U.S. government to use U.S. military planes to help evacuate Japanese who could not move to the south.

Such measures cannot be achieved by Japan alone and require coordination with the U.S. and South Korean governments.

In the Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation concluded in September 1997, the two governments agreed to help each other concerning the evacuation of noncombatants.

In the guidelines, it is assumed that normal citizens of both Japan and the United States will be evacuated to safe locations by planes and vessels of the U.S. military and the Self-Defense Forces in the case of an emergency in areas surrounding Japan.

Japan and the United States held a joint drill in November 2000 to transport private citizens by transport airplane and helicopter at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Base in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

However, according to the sources, the government has yet to commence full-scale talks with the U.S. government over the evacuation plans under the guidelines.

One of the reasons is that the U.S. side is seeking to conclude a secret agreement, and another is that some in the government are cautious that talks with the United States may incur the resentment of North Korea.

However, with growing concern over the North's nuclear development program, the government now believes that it must devise measures to evacuate Japanese in South Korea, the sources said.

The government believes that the United States is ready to enter into talks over the issue as the evacuation of U.S. citizens also will be part of the discussions. "There is no option but Japan when the U.S. evacuates its people from the Korean Peninsula," a government official said.

Talks will likely discuss how to share the cost of evacuation and about accommodating U.S. citizens in U.S. bases and surrounding areas in Japan.

Copyright 2003 The Yomiuri Shimbun
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20030122wo02.htm