TOKYO, July 24: Japanese opposition parties on Thursday launched 11th-hour resistance to enacting a bill to send troops to Iraq by submitting a series of censure motions against government ministers.

Four opposition groups in the upper house of parliament submitted a non-binding censure motion against Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoriko Kawaguchi in a bid to delay debate on the bill.

The motion was defeated 136 to 103, but just as the votes were being tallied, the opposition introduced a second censure vote against Defence Agency director Shigeru Ishiba, parliamentary officials said.

The opposition chose the filibustering tactic of a series of rolling censure and no-confidence motions because parliament is obliged to debate them in specially convened plenary sessions before getting on with any other business.

It also planned to present a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and censure motions against other ministers.

The Iraq bill, already approved by the powerful lower house on July 4, would provide legal basis for the first dispatch of Japanese troops since World War II to a country where there is ongoing fighting.

The opposition, including the left-wing Social Democrats and the Communists, insists that the troop dispatch would violate Japan’s anti-war constitution, put Japanese at risk and involve the country in the aftermath of an unjustifiable war.

An official from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said the earlier motion had put off the start of debate of the bill scheduled for Thursday afternoon by the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, whose approval is a prerequisite for voting by an upper house plenary session.—AFP