Japan watching Taiwanese ship near disputed isles

Tokyo, Aug 17: Japanese coast guard patrol boats were watching a Taiwanese ship that had approached a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea today but changed direction after warnings not to enter Japanese territory.

A coast guard official said the boat approached within about 44 km of the Senkaku islands, which are claimed by Japan, Taiwan and China, before changing direction and moving away.

''People on the Taiwanese ship threw stones at Japanese patrol boats that had approached to warn it away, but there was no damage of any kind,'' the official said, added that patrol boats would continue surveillance of the ship.

Japanese media reports said the boat was carrying members of citizens' groups from Taiwan who wanted to press their nation's claim to the islands as well as protest Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit on Tuesday to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.

Kyodo news agency said the Japanese government had set up an office at its crisis management centre to handle the situation.

The islands are near a gas field disputed between Japan and China, one of several issues that have dragged ties between the Asian neighbours to their lowest ebb in decades.

Koizumi paid his respects at Yasukuni, where Japanese World War Two leaders convicted as war criminals are honoured along with the nation's 2.5 million war dead, on August. 15, the emotive anniversary of Japan's surrender in the war.

Yesterday, a Japanese fisherman died in disputed waters off Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido after a Russian patrol boat fired on a fishing boat. It is thought to be the first fatality for 50 years in the territorial dispute.

Russia said a border patrol boat had caught the Japanese trawler fishing illegally in Russian waters.

Japan and Russia have been locked in a long-running dispute over the four windswept North Pacific islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kuriles in Russia.

REUTERS