Japan's main opposition parties agreed to require the central government to cancel its plan to send Maritime Self-Defense Forces units to the Middle East, Jiji Press reported.
Late last year, the government decided to send the Oil-rich Self-Defense Forces to collect information to ensure the safety of sea routes in the Middle East.
But rising tensions between the US and Iran, which escalated after Iranian attacks on U.S. personnel on military bases in Iraq, pushed the opposition to express its rejection of the mission.
The agreement to demand that the government step back was born from a meeting between the opposition's heads of parliamentary affairs.
Jun Azumi of the Constitutional Democratic Party said the mission "deviates from Japan's neutral stance" regarding the Middle East.
In his view, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision is wrong.
For his part, the leader of the Democratic Party for the People, Yuichiro Tamaki, pointed out that the lives of members of the Self-Defense Forces cannot be exposed by vagueness as "studies and investigations".
Even within the ruling coalition, concern stakes have been expressed about the mission. (International Press)
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