Unidentified sub enters into western Japan territorial waters

TOKYO, Sept. 14 Kyodo - An unidentified foreign submarine temporarily entered into Japanese territorial waters between Shikoku and Kyushu islands, western Japan, on Sunday morning, Japanese Defense Ministry officials said.

The submarine was detected at 6:56 a.m. at a point south of the Bungo Strait, 7 kilometers inside the territorial sea line and some 60 km southwest of Cape Ashizuri in Kochi Prefecture, they said, adding the vessel left the region shortly after.

The nationality of the submarine is still unknown but Japan judged it did not belong to the United States, Japan's closest security ally, they said.

Defense Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters, ''It was very regrettable.
We need to do our utmost tracking down the submarine and get to the bottom of
the incident.''
The last time such an incident occurred was in November 2004 when a Chinese
submarine was found near the Sakishima group of islands, Okinawa Prefecture,
southwestern Japan.
Hayashi suggested the ministry recognized Sunday's incident as not so serious
that it would prompt him to order the Maritime Self-Defense Force to take
maritime security operations, an operation the MSDF has taken only twice in the
postwar era.
''When we confirmed the vessel in question was a submarine, it was already out
of our territorial waters,'' Hayashi said. The government issued the order in
the 2004 incident as the second such case.
According to the officials, the MSDF Aegis destroyer Atago found ''a
periscope-like object'' in the waters and quickly determined it was of an
unidentified submarine based on data it collected with active sonar.
The Atago chased the submarine and the MSDF deployed a P-3C patrol airplane,
two helicopters and three other destroyers to track it down.
The destroyer was by chance sailing in the region on its way to the MSDF base
in Maizuru in the Sea of Japan from the MSDF base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo,
the officials said.
==Kyodo