New Komeito, despite its coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party, may oppose the dispatch of troops to Iraq if the security situation there worsens, its leader said Sunday.
"It will be fully possible that we'll oppose it if the security situation is so bad that the area cannot be recognized as free of fighting," Takenori Kanzaki said on a TV program aired by NHK.
Kanzaki's comment comes against the backdrop of a cautious view within the party's main support group, the lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai, about the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces.