Japan to expand SDF base in tiny but strategically important Djibouti

[Deeq A.]

KESENNUMA, MIYAGI PREF – Japan has agreed to lease 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of empty land in the strategically important northeastern African country of Djibouti for use by the Self-Defense Forces troops operating in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia on antipiracy missions, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has said.

The lease is designed to expand the SDF’s 12-hectare (30-acre) operational base in Djibouti that at present houses facilities such as hangars and barracks.

The base was set up in the northwestern section of Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport in June 2011. The Japanese and Djibouti governments agreed on a new lease Wednesday that covers the land on the eastern side of the SDF base, Onodera.

Speaking to reporters Saturday in his home constituency of Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, Onodera said Sunday that the government had pursued the lease to prevent the safe operation of the SDF base from being adversely impacted if another country were to have used the land.

The United States also operates its own base at the international airport.

The government is considering using the land to build facilities for sheltering Japanese nationals in the event of crises, sources said.

In July 2016, the government flew the SDF’s C-130 transport aircraft from Djibouti to evacuate four staff members at the Japanese Embassy in Juba, the capital of nearby South Sudan, amid a deteriorating security situation.

The base, Japan’s first long-term, large-scale overseas post since World War II, also acts as a counterweight to what Tokyo sees as growing Chinese influence in the region.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy formally opened in August its first overseas base, a logistics hub in the tiny Horn of African country, ostensibly also to protect Chinese vessels and conduct antipiracy missions.

Japan Times