Japan's ruling camp achieves basic agreement to loosen security legislation

Japanese ruling bloc on Wednesday reached a basic agreement to loosen the tightrope on the country's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) so as to make it play a bigger role abroad in engaging overseas operations.

Senior lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Komeito Party agreed in the outline that a parliament agreement is "basically" needed prior to the dispatch of the SDF overseas.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is mulling to create a permanent law to enable the SDF to be projected abroad whenever necessary to provide logistical support for their foreign counterparts.

And the two parties agreed that UN and other related resolutions will be the prerequisite for SDF operations overseas in the envisaged permanent law, although the LDP had proposed sending the SDF even without the backing of UN.

"It's still a work in progress. We want to ask the government to prepare legislation by mid-April so we can resume talks," LDP vice President Masahiko Komura was quoted as reporting.

The outline also said that the relative legislation will aim at enlarging the scope of SDF's overseas support operations that will no longer be limited to the U.S. troops.

Japan's overhaul on its defense stance carried out by Abe since he returned to power is a controversial issue here and is criticized that the move goes contrary to the country's pacifist Constitution which bans the SDF from engaging conflicts overseas.

Japan's neighboring countries also concern over the country's move to loosen its security stance as the Abe's administration is increasingly conservative and right-leaning with efforts trying to whitewash its wartime atrocities. Endi