Nearly half of people surveyed were opposed to the revised Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines announced earlier this week to give Japanese troops an expanded role beyond the country's vicinity, a Kyodo News poll found Thursday.

While 47.9 percent said they were against the guidelines, 35.5 percent supported it, according to the telephone survey conducted on Wednesday and Thursday.

The approval rating for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood at 52.7 percent, down 2.7 percentage points from the previous poll in March.