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The secretaries-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner New Komeito agreed Wednesday that a Cabinet decision to enable Japan to exercise collective self-defense right is hard to come before the current Diet session which ends Sunday, local media reported.
The Japanese government on Tuesday formally presented the ruling parties' security panel with a draft of a Cabinet decision concerning reinterpretation of the Constitution. An agreement between the two ruling parties is needed before the Cabinet can give the OK.
Yoshihisa Inoue, New Komeito's secretary general, said during a meeting with the LDP's Shigeru Ishiba that more time is needed to build a consensus within his party on the controversial issue.
"There will be no Cabinet decision without New Komeito's consent," Ishiba, secretary general of the LDP admitted after the meeting.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is aiming to lift the ban on collective self-defense by reinterpreting Japan's Pacifist Constitution, which prohibits the use of force to settle international disputes and allows only the minimum level of self- defense.
On the contrary, New Komeito has been more cautious toward the major policy change.
According to the draft statement, Japan is allowed to exercise the right to self-defense on three standards, one of which said " when it is feared that the Japanese people's lives and liberty as well as their right to pursue happiness will be ruined by an armed attack on another country.
Participants of the talks from New Komeito said this would expand without limits the scope of the nation's self-defense right, urging the government and the LDP to drop the wording.
Some participants from New Komeito have also reacted negatively to the explicit reference to "collective self-defense" in the draft.
On Tuesday evening, more than 5,000 people took part in a rally in Tokyo to protest against the draft and the government's dangerous move.
They hold up placards with slogans "Antiwar" and "Don't destroy Article 9", condemning the government's drive to lift the ban on collective self-defense disregared and offended its people
One of the demonstrators Miyoko Kimura, 59, told reporters that Abe's move did not sufficiently reflect public sentiment and his plan to use a Cabinet decision for constitutional reinterpretation rather than amendment is an "expedient."
In addition, more than 1.76 million Japanese have signed a petition against the government's move to lift the ban. But the government and the LDP still insist on it and they now try to get Cabinet approval by early July.
