The Defense Agency plans to upgrade its eight regional defense facilities administration bureaus into regional defense bureaus, agency sources said Tuesday.

They said the upgrade is to facilitate cooperation with local authorities in case of an attack. The eight upgraded bureaus will directly supervise 50 regional liaison departments of the Self-Defense Forces.

The move is part of a reorganization program in line with a set of bills currently in the Diet aimed at augmenting contingency legislation enacted last year, they said.

The agency intends to begin the restructuring in fiscal 2005 after including it in a revised National Defense Program Outline to be compiled later this year, the sources said.

The bills call for closer contact between the agency and local-level authorities, including prefectural governments, especially on the occasion of drills or actual contingencies, they said.

The agency has regional defense facilities administration bureaus in Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, that coordinate with local governments regarding SDF and U.S. military bases.

The 50 regional liaison departments are in all 47 prefectures to recruit SDF members and help retired members find new jobs.

The bureaus are under the Defense Facilities Administration Agency, and the liaison departments are under the command of the Ground Self-Defense Force's district army headquarters.

With the reorganization, the upgraded bureaus and the liaison departments will both be under the Defense Agency.

Under the seven bills now being deliberated in the Diet, governors can ask for deployment of SDF troops to guard designated facilities or to supervise the evacuation of residents.

Local government officials will be in charge of negotiations with residents to allow the SDF or U.S. military to use their land.