Prime Minister Koizumi wants Constitution to be rewritten

On February 5 in the House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro stated that the need now is to revise the Constitution instead of just changing its interpretation in order to constitutionally dispatch Japan's troops abroad.

He said, "A revision to the Constitution might end the division between the two arguments, one regarding the overseas SDF dispatch as constitutional and the other criticizing it as unconstitutional."

He also expressed his expectation that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan will develop debate on changing the Constitution.

No prime minister in the past has been so blunt as to call for the Constitution to be revised in the Diet in conflict with his duty as the guardian of the Constitution.

The Japanese government has so far justified the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces abroad by using distorted interpretation of the Constitution. (end)