Japan needs cluster bombs for self defence-minister

TOKYO, May 25 (Reuters) Japan backed the use of controversial cluster bombs today, arguing it needed them to defend itself, as countries around the world are trying to push through a declaration banning the weapons.

Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma said Japan would never use cluster bombs to attack other countries, but was stockpiling them to prevent invading forces from landing on its shores.

''The reason why cluster bombs have become an issue is because cluster bombs are used by the aggressor,'' Kyuma told reporters.

''For the defence side, there aren't any good alternatives to them.'' ''In the case of Japan, it will never attack others under the current constitution... It's 100 per cent certain that Japan will not use cluster bombs for offensive purposes,'' he said.

Delegates from around 70 countries are meeting in Lima, Peru, this week to sign an international declaration banning cluster bombs, which scatter numerous deadly bomblets when they explode.

Japan's top government spokesman, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, said Tokyo understood the humanitarian risks linked to the use of cluster bombs and was working with non-governmental organisations to get rid of unexploded bombs in areas such as Afghanistan.

But he said his country also had to consider national security.

''We will deal with the issue taking into consideration the balance of humanitarian and security aspects,'' he told reporters.

Often the bomblets scattered by a cluster bomb lie dormant, exploding only when they are picked up by unsuspecting civilians, sometimes years after they were dropped.

More than 30 years after US airplanes bombed Vietnam, there are still tens of millions of cluster bomb duds in the southeast Asian country.

The United States, Russia and China -- the world's biggest producers of cluster munitions -- have stayed away from the conference in Lima.

More than 70 countries are believed to stockpile cluster bombs. Japan argues that any ban would not be effective as long as the biggest producers of cluster bombs refuse to support it.

''The first objective of Japan's policy as far as this is concerned is to develop an international regime embracing all nations and this could be really effective in banning bombs of that sort,'' said Tomohiko Taniguchi, the Japanese Foreign Ministry's deputy press secretary.

REUTERS AE HS1408