India plays down tailing of its naval ships by Chinese spy ship during Exercise Malabar

Indian security establishment and Navy have played down the incident of tailing of Indian warships by a Chinese spy ship during the ongoing India-US-Japan trilateral naval Exercise Malabar in West Pacific ocean on Wednesday.

This even as Japan -- in whose territorial water the incident happened -- has raised objection at the diplomatic levels with China.

A source here said that India's position is "every country's ships have the right to passage in international commons".

Sources further said that this was not an unusual incident considering the large movement of ships in the region.

As defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, both military and civilian ships can be allowed an "innocent passage "through territorial waters -- which is up to 12 Nautical Miles off the baseline -- of a country as long as it doesn't pose a threat.

A Japanese P-3C patrol aircraft spotted the Dongdiao-class intelligence vessel sailing in territorial waters to the west of Kuchinoerabu Island at around 3:30 am (1830 GMT on Tuesday), Japanese deputy chief cabinet secretary Hiroshige Seko was quoted by PTI from Tokyo.

This comes at a time when China has increasingly claimed to have territorial ownership in the South China Sea, whereas the other countries have accepted it as accepted as International waters.

The 20th edition of Ex Malabar -- is being conducted from June 14-17 in the Pacific Ocean with the harbour phase at Sasebo in Japan from June 10 -13 in which over 20 ships and 90 aircraft from India, Japan and the US are participating.

The IN ships participating in the exercise are from the Eastern Fleet and include INS Sahyadri and INS Satpura, indigenously built guided missile stealth frigates, INS Shakti, a modern fleet tanker and support ship and INS Kirch, an indigenous guided missile corvette. The ships have embarked one Sea King 42B ASW helicopter and two Chetak utility helicopters.