Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed Wednesday to take immediate steps to allow Japanese troops to provide logistical support in any US retaliation for last week's terror attacks.
"We will take necessary measures as soon as possible to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces to offer support such as medical treatment, transport and supply [of goods and food]," Koizumi told a news conference.
Koizumi said his government was ready to revise legislation to facilitate such support.
"We will provide our maximum support for our ally, the United States," Koizumi said. "We want to take action with our own initiative in order to root out any terrorism."
But he added that Japanese troops would not be directly involved in any military activities, which are banned by the nation's pacifist post-war constitution.
"I would like [ruling coalition parties] to consider what we can do within the limit of the constitution," Koizumi said.
After losing World War II, Japan's post-war constitution renounced the right to wage war as a means of resolving international disputes. Japan is also barred from maintaining "military" forces.
Japan has surmounted that legal hurdle, however, by referring to its armed personnel as its Self-Defense Force.
Under its constitution Japan must either enact new legislation or expand the interpretation of US-Japan security guidelines on defense cooperation in "areas surrounding Japan" in case of emergency, analysts say.
Koizumi also said Tokyo would offer "emergency economic assistance to Pakistan and India, which are cooperating with the United States" in its planned retaliation against alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden believed to stay in Afghanistan.
Koizumi's announcement came after he held an emergency meeting with senior officials of the three ruling parties -- his Liberal Democratic Party, the New Komeito Party and the New Conservative Party.
Koizumi held separate talks late Wednesday with US Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker, and briefed him on his planned support.
Leaders from Britain, France, Indonesia and Pakistan have already made arrangements to visit US President George W. Bush in Washington in the wake of the aerial strikes that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on September 11.
Japanese media have reported that US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage urged Japan to dispatch its Self-Defense Force (SDF) to provide non-combatant support to US troops, asking Japan to "show the flag."
Tokyo donated a massive $13 billion of financial assistance to an allied coalition at the time of the 1991 Gulf War.
But politicians consider the compromise a diplomatic failure after it invited criticism that Japan was merely giving away money while making no real human effort.
Defense Agency chief Gen Nakatani has said Japan "should not repeat the same failure [as it did] at the time of the Gulf War."
Tokyo aims to submit a bill outlining the legislation to parliament when it reopens on September 27, the daily said.
Meanwhile, the Asahi newspaper reported the government was considering a special law to let the nation support a US strike -- but without a clear time limit -- as any US military action might be prolonged.
The main pillar of Japanese support would likely be the supply of essential materials to staging areas in the Indian Ocean and Pakistan, the Asahi said -- TOKYO (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
