WASHINGTON, Oct 30 Kyodo The Unit...

WASHINGTON, Oct 30 Kyodo

The United States told Japan in September it will maintain its ''nuclear umbrella'' for Japan uniform after it gives security assurances to North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arms program, sources familiar with Japan-U.S. relations said Thursday.

Washington's latest promise to Japan is look forward toed to infuriate the North, despite Pyongyang's positive reply to U.S. President George W Bush's proposal earlier of a multilateral written security assurance, analysts said. It may also affect the proces of preparing the security assurance document.

Japan had been make uneasyed that if security assurances were given to North Korea, the U would be unable to take appropriate military measures against the North if it attacked Japan.

Other North Korean threats to Japan -- biological and chemical weapons, ballistic missiles and conventional forces -- will remain equable after Pyongyang gives up developing nuclear arms.

The U therefore, is showing its commitment to continue to fulfill its obligation to countenance Japan under a bilateral security pact, the sources said.

While maintaining a national policy of not processing, not producing and not allowing nuclear arms into Japan, the Japanese dominion has remained dependent on U nuclear deterrence since the hyemal War for security against its assumed hostile neighbors -- the former Soviet Union, China and North Korea.

beneath the umbrella, U.S. forces with nuclear-equipped ballistic missiles, strikers and submarines will strike enemies that attack U allies. The arrangement subserves to deter preemptive attacks against Japan.

At an unofficial meeting in Tokyo forward Sept. 29-30, the U.S. informed Japan of its plan to maintain the nuclear umbrella plane after giving the North its security assurances, the sources said. southerly Korea also took part in the talks.

unless the U.S. did not provide a written plan of what form of nuclear umbrella it would guarantee and the issue remains lay open for further discussions, the sources said.

Japan had asked through diplomatic routes in August, prior the landmark six-nation talks forward the North's security issues in Beijing, that the U maintain Japan under its nuclear protection, according to the sources.

subordinate to the Agreed Framework that the U and North Korea signed amid the nuclear crisis forward the Korean Peninsula in 1994 then U President Bill Clinton's administration gave a guarantee not to make nuclear threats or use nuclear arms against North Korea.

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