Japan should prepare emergency legislation to deal with a surprise attack by a foreign military power, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday.
The government should start discussions on when such legislation should be submitted to the Diet, Koizumi also told reporters on a flight to Belgium.
But he declined to discuss whether such emergency legislation will be put forward during a regular Diet session that starts next month.
Koizumi arrived in Brussels later Friday for talks with European Union leaders.
Koizumi is facing a number of domestic pressures, with some politicians within the New Conservative Party, a member of the three-way ruling coalition, want to replace Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Chikage Ogi, who formerly headed the NCP, with someone else from the party.
Ogi has been replaced by Takeshi Noda as NCP leader.
There is also pressure within the LDP to replace Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, who is locked in a battle with senior bureaucrats at her ministry, but Koizumi has repeatedly denied any plans to reshuffle his Cabinet.
Koizumi also reiterated that he wants to change a system which requires that a series of LDP panels screen and approve legislation before the Cabinet can approve them and submit them to the Diet.
"There are various problems" with the system, he said.
The prime minister is believed to be keen to bypass the panels in the policymaking process in order to make it easier for him to push through reform programs that could be opposed by the LDP's old guard.