Nine ships from Japan, the United States, Australia and France have joined in a multinational exercise off Japan's coast aimed at intercepting weapons of mass destruction at sea, China Radio International reported Tuesday.

It was conducted under US President George W. Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI.

The manoeuvres, the first in East Asia and the first hosted by Japan, have been criticized by nearby North Korea as a "provocation."

The "Team Samurai" drills, held in the Pacific just south of Tokyo, involved a scenario focusing on the interception and boarding of two ships suspected of transporting sarin, a deadly nerve gas.

The exercises are part of a U.S. administration effort to block shipments of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the material and equipment needed to make them and missiles that could be used to carry them.

Seventeen nations, from Turkey to Norway, sent observers to the drill.

Source: Xinhua