Japan opens Djibouti base to curb piracy

Japan opens Djibouti base to curb piracy    Japan has opened its first overseas military base in the east African nation of Djibouti specifically to help curb the rise of piracy in the nearby Gulf of Aden, Agence France Presse reported Friday.
   'We are deploying here to fight piracy and for our self-defense,' Keizo Kitagawa, Japan’s navy force captain and coordinator of the deployment, told the news agency. 'Japan is a maritime nation and the increase in piracy in the Gulf of Aden through which 20,000 vessels sail every year is worrying.”
   Kitagawa added that 10 percent of the Gulf of Aden’s traffic comes from Japan and 90 percent of Japanese exports depend on passage through the lane.
   Japan previously stationed soldiers — part of the country's self-defense army since it has no standing army and cannot wage war according to a post-World War II agreement — at an American base in the region. Kitagawa said Japan scouted locations in Yemen, Oman and Kenya before deciding last year on Djibouti, a tiny nation on the Horn of Africa.