Japan's House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono suggested Tuesday that Japan should maintain its war-renouncing Constitution rather than revising it in order to try and gain a permanent seat of the UN Security Council.

"Japan has a choice of abandoning its policy to seek to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council and pursuing its role as a UN member," Kono was quoted by Kyodo News, warning against the growing calls at home and abroad for a revision of the country's Constitution.

His comments came after US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week, "If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article 9 would have be examined in that light."

Kono said: "It is not appropriate to revise Article 9 because the United States urges us to do so."

Article 9, the centerpiece of Japan's pacifist Constitution, stipulates that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2004)