Aso denies considering allowing use of collective self-defense

TOKYO, Nov. 4 Kyodo - Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday denied considering enabling Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense, apparently backpedaling from a positive view he showed about changing the interpretation of the Constitution to that end shortly after he took office in September.

Aso said there is no such possibility ''at all,'' making the remark days after
the government dismissed the Air Self-Defense Force chief of staff over a
controversial essay on use of the right and Japan's wartime history.
Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami was dismissed Friday
over the essay, which effectively called for authorizing Japan's use of the
right to collective self-defense and denying Japan's aggression against other
Asian countries such as China and Korea before and during World War II.
Aso said in late September in New York that he had ''reiterated that basically
the interpretation (of the Constitution) should be changed'' and that ''the
matter of the right to collective self-defense is important.''
He had advocated considering changing the government's interpretation of the
pacifist Constitution to allow its forces to exercise the right to collective
self-defense.
Japan takes the position that the country has the right to defend an ally under
attack but ''cannot exercise'' the right under the pacifist Constitution, a
legal interpretation disputed by some experts.
The issue of whether Japan can exercise the right to collective self-defense
has been a politically sensitive issue in connection with the operations of the
Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the military forces of the United States,
Japan's closest security ally.
==Kyodo