"I feel the president has extremely high expectations" for revising Article 9, Okiharu Yasuoka, chairman of the LDP's Headquarters for the Promotion of Revision to the Constitution, said at a meeting.

Yasuoka said that he intends to accelerate discussions among his colleagues to draft amendments to the supreme law.

In a video shown at a meeting of a group of advocators for constitutional revisions on May 3, Abe proposed that Article 9 recognize the existence of the Self-Defense Forces while maintaining the existing war-renouncing paragraphs and expressed hope that the amended Constitution will come into force in 2020.

At Friday's meeting, Yasuoka said that he is considering establishing a new organization in order to broaden discussions on the issue by bringing together all party members. (Jiji Press)