A group of lawmakers of the governing Liberal Democratic Party is campaigning for the drastic revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. The group, headed by Lower House member Toshio Kojima, has come up with a proposal for revising SOFA in cooperation with a council of governors of 14 prefectures, including Okinawa and Kanagawa, where U.S. military installations exist.
In January, Taro Kono, Hideaki Omura and other representatives of the "association to secure a true Japan-U.S. partnership through a revised SOFA" are expected to go to Washington for talks with U.S. congressional leaders.
The Foreign Ministry has said it seeks to maintain the present pact by improving its implementation, but Japanese-U.S. negotiations earlier this year to review criminal procedures under SOFA broke down. The talks were prompted by the alleged rape of a Japanese woman by a U.S. serviceman in Okinawa. Opinion among Japanese Diet members and prefectural government officials is growing that the 40-year-old SOFA must be revised. The Koizumi administration should give serious consideration to such views.