Gates presses Japan on security role

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday pressed Japan to play an international security role in line with its global stature and to resume its main role in the US-led "war on terror."
Gates, on a tour of Asia, held talks with Japanese ministers amid deadlock in parliament here over the government's efforts to resume a Japanese naval refuelling mission in support of US-led operations in Afghanistan.
He was quoted as telling Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura that the suspension of the Indian Ocean mission was "regrettable." "I replied to him that the government will make the utmost efforts toward a resumption," Komura told reporters after the meeting.
Gates' visit comes amid a stalemate between Japan's government and opposition over the refuelling mission, which was suspended a week ago when its legal mandate expired. Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, blocked an extension of the mission, and his party rejected an offer by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of a power-sharing agreement to break the deadlock.
US officials have said the halt to Japan's refuelling mission would have no operational impact on maritime security operations in the Indian Ocean. But the clash is a broader political challenge to the transformation of the US-Japan alliance, which envisions Tokyo taking on a bigger supporting role in regional security.
"We think it's important that all the countries that benefit and depend on the international system... take responsibility for helping defend ourselves in this war on terror," a senior US defence official told reporters.
The United States, which has some 37,000 US troops in Japan, is shrinking and consolidating its military presence here, with plans to relocate some 8,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam by 2014.
At the same time, the countries have worked closely together on ballistic missile defences since 1998, when North he "flip side" of diplomatic efforts through six-party talks to get North Korea to give up its nuclear programmes.
North Korea earlier this week began work to disable its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon under US supervision as part of a denuclearisation agreement worked out in the talks. "But Japan and the alliance with South Korea needs to be mindful of the North Korean threat, how it exists today and how it may be modified or attenuated or deterred over time," the official said. "The North Korea threat is always sort of the ghost at the banquet at these discussions."