US rejects Beijing's demand to stop flying over disputed islands

WASHINGTON. KAZINFORM - The United States has rejected Beijing's demands that US surveillance planes stop flying over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, US Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel told reporters.

"The United States conducts overflight operations in international waters around the entire globe, so the flight of a reconnaissance plane in the South China Sea is a regular occurrence, and frankly, an entirely appropriate occurrence because that is international water, international airspace," Russel stated on Thursday.

Over the past few months, China has been constructing artificial islands on coral reefs in the Spratly Islands region it claims in the South China Sea.

The US State Department has expressed concern over Beijing's claims to 90 percent of the South China Sea region.

Russel said the United States would continue "to fully exercise our rights globally to the international space" and defend the rights of all countries to freedom of navigation and overflight in the region.

On Thursday, CNN reported that a Chinese naval vessel issued eight warnings on Wednesday to a US P8-A Poseidon advanced surveillance aircraft asking it to "please go away... to avoid a misunderstanding."

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell told CNN in an exclusive interview that the incident confirmed there was "absolutely" a risk that the United States and China could go to war in the near future.

Media outlets reported last week that US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was considering expanding military patrols around the Spratly Islands, an archipelago off the Philippine, Malaysian and Vietnamese coasts.

The Spratly Islands are a disputed group of more than 750 reefs, islets, atolls, cays and islands in the South China Sea. China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam have conflicting territorial claims to most or part of the archipelago, Kazinform refers to Sputniknews.com.