Japan warship to escort US supply vessel in Pacific

Japan will dispatch its biggest warship since World War II to protect a US supply ship, as tensions mount in the region over North Korea, media reports said yesterday.

The helicopter carrier Izumo will leave the mother port of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, on Monday and join the US supply ship to escort it further into the western Pacific, the leading Asahi Shimbun daily and Jiji Press reported citing unnamed government sources.

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It will be the first deployment -- outside of troop exercises --to protect the US fleet after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expanded the country's military capabilities in 2015, though they remain restricted under Japan's pacifist constitution.