Japan and the United States are considering expanding the role of Japan's military to ease the burden on US forces in a plan on the realignment of US forces, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

The two countries want to conclude the interim report this month and aim to reach a final agreement early next year, the business daily quoted Pentagon and Japanese government officials as saying in a dispatch from Washington.

The Nihon Keizai said Japan and the United States were considering deploying Japan's P3C patrol planes and a destroyer equipped with Aegis naval weapons systems to spy on militants in anti-terrorist operations.

Japanese forces would also provide large vessels to transport other countries' personnel or heavy machinery to nations rebuilding from war or natural disasters, the newspaper said.

The P3C planes would also head to disaster areas to provide information to US or other forces involved in rescue missions, it said.

A Defense Agency spokesman said Japan was studying what roles the military would share with the United States but declined comment on specific items under consideration.

"We are considering what roles and duties we would have to tackle diverse tasks such as rescue efforts after a tsunami disaster and other measures to improve international security," the spokesman said.

Japan renounced war in its 1947 constitution imposed by the United States after World War II. Moves away from its absolute pacifism have roused anger in China and South Korea, which Japan invaded in the 20th century.

Under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a close ally of US President George W. Bush, Japan has raised its military profile.

Japan has some 600 troops in southern Iraq on a non-combat, post-war reconstruction mission in its first military deployment since 1945 to a country where there is ongoing fighting.

On Tuesday, Japan renewed for one year its ship deployment to the Indian Ocean to help US forces in Afghanistan.

Japan also sent about 1,000 troops, its largest overseas mission since World War II, to Indonesia after December's devastating tsunami.

The changes would come as part of a plan on the realignment of US forces in Japan, which could also address the controversial issue of easing the burden on Okinawa, the southern island chain where more than half of US troops in Japan are based.

The Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday that the dispute has led US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to scrap a plan to visit Japan this month even though he will visit Japan's neighbors and sometime rivals China and South Korea.

The Asahi, quoting anonymous government sources, said that Rumsfeld judged he would not be able to break an impasse in stalled talks with Japan over relocating the sprawling Futenma air base in Okinawa.

Washington had agreed to move the base out of the crowded urban center of Ginowan to reclaimed land off the shore of a fishing village. But that plan has also faced protests both with residents and environmentalists who say the area is a habitat for an endangered sea cow.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman, told reporters that no date had been scheduled in the first place for Rumsfeld to visit.

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