Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba on Tuesday indicated readiness to relax Japan's ban on arms exports to allow the country to jointly develop weapons with countries besides the United States.
Ishiba, on a trip to Britain, the Netherlands and France to discuss international efforts to rebuild Iraq with European defense ministers, dropped the hint to reporters traveling with him on his six-day tour, which ends Friday.
"Following the end of the Cold War, it has been a basic assumption in Europe to jointly develop weapons," he said. "The ban on arms exports is based on notions prevalent during the Cold War era."
Under a policy introduced in 1967, Japan decided not to export arms to communist nations, to countries under a United Nations arms embargo or to countries involved in international conflicts.