Japan's Cabinet yesterday approved a new anti-terrorism bill that would extend a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean but curtail Tokyo's support for US-led combat operations in Afghanistan.

The bill was approved at a Cabinet session, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said. The measure must now be approved by the country's parliament.

The new bill would limit Japanese ships to refueling and supplying water to ships on anti-terrorism patrols, but does not allow them to refuel vessels involved in military operations, such as attacks, as well as other activities including rescue operations and humanitarian relief.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's government made the changes in the mission, which started in 2001, in hopes of mollifying opposition critics who said it involved Japan too deeply in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan, or DPJ, controls the upper house of parliament, giving it the power to slow - but not definitively kill - the ruling bloc's legislative agenda. Top ally the United States, meanwhile, has clamored for extension of the mission.

The current mission expires November 1. The new bill was to go to the Diet, or parliament, for a plenary vote.

The government has argued strenuously for the extension, saying that pulling out would leave Japan - which depends on the Middle East for almost all of its oil imports - sidelined in the fight against global terrorism.

"It's clear to anyone that this bill is the biggest issue facing parliament. The Cabinet is determined to secure parliamentary approval," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told reporters. "I am confident of winning support from the opposition."

Currently, 17 vessels from eight countries - the US, Britain, France, Germany, Pakistan, Canada, New Zealand and Japan - are participating in the Maritime Intercept Operations, or MIO, in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf as part of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, which also involves 20 countries deploying ground troops to Afghanistan.

Agencies

(China Daily 10/18/2007 page12)