主题：美帝终于跳到前台来了 -- mandman

The United States also stressed the need to avoid an escalation of the row as Japanese media reported Clinton told Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara in New York that the islands are covered by the Japan-US security treaty

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters after his meeting with the US secretary of state that Clinton had acknowledged the Senkaku islands -- known as the Daioyu islands by China, which also claims them -- were subject to the treaty, Kyodo News Agency reported from New York.

"According to the Japanese minister, Clinton said that the Senkakus... are subject to Article 5 of the bilateral security treaty, which authorizes the U.S. to protect Japan in the event of an armed attack 'in the territories under the administration of Japan'," the report said.

The dispatch did not quote Maehara directly.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley separately told reporters the United States takes no position on the sovereignty of the islands.

"The issue of the Senkakus is complicated," Crowley said in New York.