A bill raised by the Japanese government to upgrade the Defense Agency into a ministry passed the House of Councillors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday, clearing the way for its enactment through the current Diet session ending Friday.

The bill, the first of its kind by the government, was approved by the Lower House plenary session on Nov. 30. Under the legislation, the defense agency will be transformed in January into a ministry with budgeting and policymaking roles.

Another bill proposes revising a set of laws to upgrade peacekeeping, disaster relief and other international cooperation operations into the Self-Defense Forces' essential duties from their current subordinate positions will also clear the Upper House, Kyodo News said.

The prospective defense ministry will be headed by a "minister, " instead of a current director general whose post is held by a state minister. Upgraded power of the administrative chief will include calling for a Cabinet meeting and requesting budgets directly to the Finance Ministry.

The agency upgrading, called as a "historic process" by some defense agency officials, was described as necessary and natural by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, who said the upgrading will enable it to deal with all kinds of situations in a more appropriate manner.

Functions of the Defense Facilities Administration Agency, which will be scrapped in fiscal 2007 starting next March, will be integrated into the upcoming "Defense Ministry."

The Defense Agency was established in 1954 and has been restricted within Japan's war-renouncing pacifist Constitution. Its main task now is defense of the nation and disaster relief at home. As an affiliate of the Cabinet Office, the agency is under the direct control of the prime minister.

Japanese analysts said that the voice for upgrading the Defense Agency has never calmed down ever since its establishment, but the idea has not been brought into reality for so long because Japan's militaristic history which led the country itself into being devastated haunted among the public.

Source: Xinhua