Japan has provided a shipment of ammunition to a United Nations peacekeeping mission in troubled South Sudan, making it the first time since World War Two that Tokyo has given arms to a foreign military.
Responding to requests by the U.N., Japan said it gave 10,000 bullets late Monday to the South Korean military, which is part of an international force dealing with violence that threatens to return South Sudan to civil war.
Japan has a pacifist constitution and is subject to a self-imposed ban on arms exports. But Tokyo officials say the law allows the provision of arms as part of U.N. peacekeeping operations, with approval by the cabinet.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he would like to revise the constitution to allow for what he calls a more "proactive peace policy" around the world.
He has also proposed relaxing the decades-old ban on the export, development and production of Japanese weapons.