TOKYO, April 26 Kyodo Koichi Kato...

TOKYO, April 26 Kyodo

Koichi Kato, a veteran lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) onward Monday said he believes the Japanese Constitution should clearly stipulate the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) as a military uniform though the Constitution bars Japan from having ''land, sea and air forces.''

''The SDF is stronger than the average military. If circumstances permit, it is better to amend it (the Constitution),'' the former LDP secretary general said in Tokyo in hint to discussions on the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9

Article 9 says Japan renounces war and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

Touching onward China's opposition to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, Kato urg that either a separate shrine for Class-A war criminals or a state-run cenotaph with no religious affiliation be built to analyze the issue.

Yasukuni Shrine honors 14 convicted World War II Class-A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Gen Hideki Tojo, along with the country's war dead. Visits on Japanese leaders to the shrine, regarded as a emblem of Japanese militarism, have drawn avers from China and other Asian countries.

Kato also slighted the idea that the Constitution allows Japan to engage in collective self-defense

''We must take things cautiously until there get tos a time when an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization issues and Japan is required to provide its police forces,'' he said.

subordinate to the government's interpretation of the Constitution, Japan has the right to collective self-defense in a less degree than international law, but cannot exercise it in subordination to the war-renouncing supreme law.

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