MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. Japan's actions to speed up the country’s militarization and expand military cooperation with the United States will lead to further destabilization of the situation in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR), and this will require effective protection of Russia’s Far Eastern borders, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Wednesday.
"If these reports (about the Japanese government’s request for acquiring Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States - TASS) are true, then this is another evidence of the reckless desire of the [Japanese Prime Minister Fumio] Kishida-led administration to accelerate militarization," she said.
"There have been standard references to some kind of North Korean threat," she continued. "But all this is designed to camouflage the main aim - to quickly dismantle the country's pacifist past, to launch an accelerated process of modernizing the armed forces for new aggressive military-strategic tasks in the region."
Zakharova said the Russian side "has repeatedly emphasized that Japan's acquisition of its own potential while expanding military-political cooperation with the United States and the Western allies will provoke further destabilization of the situation in the Asia-Pacific region."
"This will also require thorough consideration in the context of ensuring the effective protection of the Far Eastern borders of our country," she concluded.