A suprapartisan group of lawmakers trying to create a Diet committee to consider constitutional amendments is instead being torn in two by the issue.

The ruling and opposition camps are split over whether to create a standing Diet committee, which could quickly get the ball rolling toward amending the Constitution, or a less-powerful research panel, as proposed by opposition lawmakers.

The group was launched in May 1997 and consists of some 350 Diet members from the Liberal Democratic Party and Liberal Party as well as from the Democratic Party of Japan, New Komeito and Kaikaku Club.

It initially sought to create a standing Diet committee to review the 51-year-old Constitution and was planning to submit a bill to revise relevant Diet laws to create the committee.

But on Thursday, the DPJ, New Komeito and Kaikaku Club, many of whose members remain reluctant to amending the pacifist Constitution, jointly proposed establishing a research panel rather than a standing committee.

At the group's general meeting Friday, members of the three opposition parties raised concern that a new standing committee, which would be empowered to propose a bill to the Diet, might immediately lead to moves for Constitutional amendments.

LDP and Liberal Party members, on the other hand, called for creation of a standing committee. Because the group members failed to reach a consensus on the matter, Taro Nakayama, a veteran LDP lawmaker and former foreign minister who serves as head of the group, said the proposal should be discussed between parties rather than within the lawmakers' group.