PRIME Minister Tomiichi Murayama has touched on an explosive issue which could end up blowing apart the current coalition Government of Japan.
It happened when he urged the annual Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) convention yesterday to back a resolution denouncing war, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ending of World War II.
The LDP majority and their Socialist allies are increasingly failing to come to terms over Japan's wartime role.
With only five months to go, a consensus is nowhere in sight on the resolution, agreed in principle when the coalition was formed last summer.
The only point on which most politicians do agree is that Japan will do everything possible to trumpet its role as a victim of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in a bid to obscure its role in events leading up to them.
At least 161 LDP politicians, more than half the party's combined strength in both Houses of the Diet, have been meeting to oppose any such resolution.