国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Japan one step closer to controversial plan to dispatch SDF to Middle East_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Japan one step closer to controversial plan to dispatch SDF to Middle East

TOKYO, Dec. 17 -- Japan took one step closer on Tuesday towards realizing a contentious plan to deploy its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to the Middle East amid tensions in the region, despite public opposition and post-war military constraints restricting the nation's military activities constitutionally.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) coalition Komeito ally, who has always been highly tentative about issues pertaining to the constitution and its amendment to loosen the shackles on the SDF as eyed by the LDP and its leader Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, green-lit a draft proposal for the SDF to be dispatched to the Middle East.

The planned deployment approved by Komeito on Tuesday is to purportedly conduct information-gathering operations and others related to enhancing the safety of commercial shipping in the region.

The plan, already backed by the ruling LDP, proposes that a helicopter-carrying destroyer and a P-3C patrol plane be sent to the region along with around 250 troops, who may be based in or around the Gulf of Oman, or the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The potential deployment, if realized, would be a distinct U-turn from Japan saying earlier in the year it had absolutely no plans to deploy its SDF to the region despite the current tensions, and a very thorny one owing to the nation's war-renouncing constitution, which heavily restricts the activities of the SDF and specifically prohibits Japan from engaging in acts of war or maintaining armed forces with war potential.