The Cabinet's recent decision to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution means that Japan would be allowed to engage in a minesweeping operation in the Strait of Hormuz even without a cease-fire in place, as long as three self-imposed legal conditions would be met, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a special Diet session Monday.

Abe was attending the first Diet session following the historic announcement July 1 that the government would reinterpret war-renouncing Article 9.

Abe's remarks indicate that Maritime Self-Defense Force ships could be dispatched to a minesweeping operation in support of an ally should a country such as Iran attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz — through which about 80 percent of crude oil exports to Japan pass.