Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior coalition New Komeito ally on Tuesday remained at odds over whether the nation should be able to exercise the right to collective self-defense, potentially stalling Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push for his Cabinet to green light the move before the current Diet session ends on June 22.

Ongoing security talks between party leaders hit a major hurdle Tuesday, with New Komeito urging the LDP to continue deliberations and clarify hypothetical situations in which collective self- defense might be necessary, rather than rush to an early agreement, despite Abe's push to reach a consensus with its party ally before the current Diet session concludes.

One major hurdle the deliberations hit Tuesday was a theoretical scenario in which Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) were deployed to defend an attack on one of its allies -- namely the United States -- in international waters.

While Abe has already called on his senior party officials to compile a statement that would effectively be the foundation of the Cabinet's final decision on collective self-defense, New Komeito Vice President Kazuo Kitagawa urged caution Tuesday saying, "We need to share first and foremost what we can and cannot do under the current interpretation of the Constitution."

As the two parties remain spilt over both hypothetical scenarios, within a broader disagreement as to whether, rather than how, Japan should exercise the right to collective self- defense, Abe leant on LDP Vice President Masahiko Komura Tuesday to expedite deliberations with its junior coalition ally towards finding consensus and finalizing the Cabinet's proposal and subsequent approval.

Abe told Komura that it was imperative for an agreement to be made with New Komeito that expressly incorporates the "right to collective self-defense" in the terminology to be used by the parties as the basis for the Cabinet's statement.

At the heart of the controversial issue and the widening divide in the ruling coalition is the war-renouncing Article 9 section of Japan's Constitution, which has remained unchanged since its adoption in 1947 and forbids the use of force as a means of settling international disputes and also prohibits Japan from maintaining an army, navy or air force

Abe's plan, however, is to see Japan legally authorized to exercise the right to collective self-defense through a Cabinet decision, by changing the government's interpretation of the Constitution and ratifying new laws to underpin the new interpretation.

Following receiving a report in May from Abe's hand-picked Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, the prime minister has been forging ahead with his new security plans, but growing resistance from New Komeito and a reluctant public also opposed to changing the nation's decades-held pacifist stance, may see the premier's plans become increasingly hampered, as no major agreement could be reached Tuesday with New Komeito.

New Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi has persistently maintained his stance that the thorny issue needs more debate, with the final decision not being made solely at the Cabinet's discretion.

"Our debate is still ongoing and it's not easy. We should first have a thorough debate before reaching any conclusion," Yamaguchi told a news conference Tuesday.

Yamaguchi, whose cautious position is gaining the support of the public and has led to a number of televised protests outside the Diet building, believes that refuting the government's own traditional interpretation of its Constitution -- that has always been that Japan has the right to collective self-defense, but is banned by the Constitution from exercising it -- renders the Constitution pointless and open to future "reinterpretation" whenever the Cabinet, not the Diet or the public, deems necessary.

Such autonomy, New Komeito has intimated, is not in the best interests of the LDP, already under close scrutiny from the intentional community over its recent security thrust, and the people of Japan whose lives could be irrevocably altered under such radical changes to the status quo of the nation's pacifist security stance.