The Democratic Party of Japan may consider discussing with the ruling coalition revisions to a government bill to allow the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces to help with the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, a senior DPJ official said Sunday.
"If (the Diet debate) gets boiled down to some extent and the basic conditions are met, it is possible to begin specific negotiations" on revising the bill, DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada said on a morning Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) program.
But Okada asserted there would be "no room for discussions" if the ruling bloc refuses to accept the DPJ's demand that any SDF dispatch first receive approval by the Diet. Okada said Japan must consider whether the Iraqi people actually need a dispatch of SDF personnel, and whether the proposed legislation would infringe upon Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.