The Vice-President of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Masahiko Komura has said that the country's self-defense forces could participate in mine-sweeping operations in the Strait of Hormuz.
In a statement aired on the country's public broadcaster NHK on Sunday, Komura claimed that worsening conditions in the Strait of Hormuz had severely hampered oil deliveries to Japan, with the result that its citizens are "freezing to death". The situation he said would qualify as a basis of exercising Japan's Collective Self-Defense.
The statement follows earlier attempts by the Abe administration to rationalize its push for the use of force. The push contradicts Japan's pacifist Constitution that prohibits the country from participating in collective-security operations.