Japan minister hits opposition chief on Afghan bill

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japan's defense minister hit out at the head of the main opposition party on Thursday for opposing a bill extending support for U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan, calling his stance inconsistent with his many years of championing a more activist Japan.

Defense Minister Yuriko Koike said failure to extend a law enabling Japan's navy to provide fuel and goods for U.S.-led coalition warships in the Indian Ocean when it expires on Oct 31 would mean "Japanese ships would disappear on November 1."

Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, has vowed to oppose an extension, in a move policy experts say could sour Tokyo's security ties with Washington. Ozawa's party won control of the upper house of parliament last month.

"Ozawa is not someone who does not understand the importance of this or who would be delighted if Japan were to abandon the fight against terrorism," Koike said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Koike, in Washington for talks with U.S. counterpart Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, noted that in 1991 it was Ozawa who "worked the hardest" to persuade his country to send funds and eventually minesweepers to support its U.S. ally in the first Gulf War.

"This is beyond my comprehension," she said of the stance of Ozawa, who has long advocated loosening constraints on Japan's security policy imposed by its pacifist constitution -- a central policy of Koike's Liberal Democratic Party.

Ozawa said this week that the war in Afghanistan was an American fight that "had nothing to do with the United Nations or the international community". But he said his party would leave open the possibility of Japan taking part in Afghan operations sanctioned by the United Nations.

Koike told reporters and Japan scholars that she hoped Ozawa's party would propose revisions to the Afghan bill that could then be debated in parliament in the autumn.

Last month's election deprived Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's LDP and its junior coalition partner of their majority in the upper house, meaning Ozawa's Democrats and their allies can reject bills approved by the lower chamber.