Japan's ruling parties agreed Friday to relax the country's strict defense equipment transfer rules to allow the export of next-generation fighter jets set to be jointly developed with Britain and Italy, senior party members said.
Kisaburo Tokai and Yosuke Takagi, the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner the Komeito party's respective policy chiefs, told reporters that they shared and understood "the necessity" of making the fighter jets available for export at a meeting earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet plans to revise the implementation guidelines of the "three principles on transfer of defense equipment and technology" policy on March 26 to enable the fighter jet shipments, according to a source close to the matter.
"The two parties had frank discussions before reaching the agreement, which has brought about better public understanding" concerning enabling exports for the fighter jets, said Tokai, who had meetings with Takagi four times to discuss the issue intensively since late last month.
The LDP, led by Kishida, recently said in a parliamentary session that allowing Japan to export fighter jets to a third country, by easing restrictions on weapon exports, is necessary to ensure efficient spending on the warplane's development and to maintain Japan's credibility as a partner in other future defense projects.
Komeito, traditionally a pacifist party with a dovish stance on security issues, was initially unwilling to relax the regulations and had demanded some limitations be placed on the fighter jet shipments to prevent Japan from selling them without due process.
But the party welcomed Kishida's pledges at the parliamentary session on Wednesday that the fighter jets would be shipped under strict conditions and "never be transferred to a country where combat is taking place."
Kishida has also said the destination of fighter jet exports would be limited to nations that have signed a pact with Japan on defense equipment and technology transfers, and each individual export case would require a separate Cabinet approval.
Currently, Japan has such a defense agreement with 15 countries -- Australia, Britain, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Vietnam.
Takagi said fighter jets tend to be considered offensive weapons but are "necessary to defend our nation," while stressing that the government and the ruling bloc will "continue to be held accountable to the public" for exports of the warplane, even after Cabinet approval.
Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara has said detailed discussions with the two European partners on the plan of developing the fighter jet by 2035, announced in late 2022, would possibly begin this month.
The three-way program marked Japan's first joint defense equipment development deal with a nation other than the United States, Tokyo's close security ally, and comes amid China's increasing military influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Japan has been opening up for arms exports under certain conditions after removing in 2014 its arms embargo policy that was long seen as symbolic of its pacifist stance under the war-renouncing Constitution.
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