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| Japan's helicopter carrier JS Izumo |
The lead ship of the Izumo-class was scheduled to anchor in the port city in April for the exercise, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers' Meeting.
But Tokyo decided not to send the vessel reflecting the country's worsening relations with South Korea.
According to Japan's Defense Ministry, Japan will participate in the exercise, but some vessels, such as the Izumo, will not join the event.
It is "most appropriate" for the country not to have the vessels arrive in the South, Kyodo News quoted the ministry's press secretary, Hajime Aoyagi, as saying during a press conference, Tuesday.
The months-long conflict started in mid-December when a Japanese P-1 maritime patrol plane carried out what the South viewed as a "highly intimidating" low-level flight near the Gwanggaeto the Great destroyer, which was on a humanitarian mission to rescue a North Korean fishing boat in the East Sea.
Japan claimed the destroyer locked a fire-control radar on the aircraft, posing a serious security threat to the surveillance aircraft. The Ministry of National Defense, however, said the claim was far from the truth.
Diplomatic relations between Seoul and Tokyo have since rapidly deteriorated, with both sides intensifying a war of words without any signs of coming to a settlement over the dispute.
Despite the escalating tension, a Japanese patrol aircraft continued to buzz South Korean warships last month, with the latest incident taking place Jan. 23.
Later in the month, Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo visited the Navy's Fleet Command in Busan, ordering officials there to "sternly" deal with any further low-altitude flights by Japanese patrol aircraft.
