Japan advisers say US-bound missiles should be hit

TOKYO, June 29 (Reuters) Japan should be prepared to shoot down ballistic missiles bound for the United States although this would relax its self-imposed ban on collective self-defence, or aiding an ally under attack, government advisers said today.

North Korea, which launched a Taepodong ballistic missile in 1998 that overflew Japan, is believed to have missiles capable of reaching the United States, Japan's closest security ally.

Washington has made clear it would welcome an end to the collective self-defence ban.

''There was overall consensus that it is absurd to have a legal system where Japan can't do anything,'' said Shinichi Kitaoka, a Tokyo University professor on a government panel considering the issue.

''There was no objection to the idea that we should intercept,'' Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made rewriting Japan's post-World War Two pacifist constitution a key goal. But as doing so will take several years at least, he wants to find ways to further loosen the limits of the US-drafted charter even before it can be amended.

''Should the United States suffer damage from a ballistic missile, it would seriously influence the defence of our own nation,'' Abe was quoted as saying at the start of the meeting.

The panel of advisers is to issue recommendations in the autumn.

Article 9 of Japan's constitution renounces the right to wage war and forbids the maintenance of a military. Successive governments have interpreted this as allowing a military solely for self-defence, but banning those forces from aiding an ally.

Under that interpretation, Tokyo could not use a planned US-Japan missile defence system to shoot down missiles headed for US territory.

Panel members have said deployment of this system, introduction of which was hastened after Pyongyang launched a barrage of missiles last July, made it urgent to ease the ban.

REUTERS SKB BD1515