In April, an epoch-making event occurred in the history of the Japan-U.S. security alliance. Two Diet members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party met with U.S. State and Defense Department officials to ask Washington to consider overhauling the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.
Taro Kono and Hideaki Omura, who serves as secretary general of the Parliamentarians' Union, made the representation on behalf of the "association to secure a true Japan-U.S. partnership through a revised SOFA," a policy group of 93 LDP lawmakers.
It is the first time that governing party lawmakers have made such a request as the first step in establishing an equal partnership under SOFA. The news, however, received scant attention in the Japanese media, except in Okinawa.