A group of ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers asked the government Thursday to revise the Self-Defense Force Law to expand areas the SDF can guard to beyond airspace, and to draft bills for better handling of high-level contingencies within Japan.

The request, submitted to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka by LDP lawmakers Gen Nakatani and Kenzo Yoneda, bears the signatures of 223 LDP legislators who support new emergency bills.

The group began gathering signatures on June 11 in an effort to gain the support of more lawmakers.

The idea for this kind of legislation is still highly sensitive in Japan, whose war-renouncing Constitution states that the nation will not maintain "land, sea and air forces."

According to the request, although protection of Japanese territorial waters is the job of the National Police Agency and the Maritime Safety Agency, the SDF should also be allowed to engage in such duties, whether on land or at sea, to effectively deal with emergencies, such as intrusions by armed forces.

Since international law allows a country to block illegal intrusions into its territory and is not a matter that would require revision of the Constitution, the government should revise the current SDF Law to expand the scope of SDF duties concerning Japan's territorial safety, the group said.

The group also called on the government to prepare emergency-contingency legislation that would free the SDF from some existing laws that restrict military operations, so that the SDF can take proper action should Japan come under attack or experience similar crises.

Obuchi reportedly told Nakatani and Yoneda that he wants to respect the fact that such a great number of politicians share the sense of necessity for such legislation, and asked them to continue studying the issue.

But Nonaka, who has been cautious about hastily preparing such laws, said the matter needs to be handled carefully, noting that the Japanese public is becoming very sensitive about giving more power to government authorities and the SDF these days because a series of controversial bills are becoming laws one after another.

Many of these bills have been criticized as being approved without sufficient Diet debate and public consensus.

Bills covering updated Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines were approved by the Diet last month, and bills to allow authorities to wiretap private communications during certain investigations and a bill to create a citizen-numbering system are currently being debated in the Upper House.