(For more stories on the Japanese economy, click)

TOKYO, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Japanese Finance MinisterYoshihiko Noda said on Saturday Tokyo would take decisive stepsto stem the yen's rise when needed, while suggesting thatcoordinated currency market intervention was a difficultoption.

Traders are getting cautious about bidding the yen up toomuch after Japanese ministers kept up warnings against thecurrency's surge to 15-year high versus the dollar.Policymakers have repeatedly said they could take decisiveaction on the yen -- normally a code phrase for currencyintervention.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan and ruling party powerbrokerIchiro Ozawa are facing off in a ruling party leadership voteon Sept. 14 that is distracting policymakers as Japan confrontsa strong yen and weak economy. The winner will likely be primeminister by virtue of the party's majority in the powerfullower house.

Kan and Noda have said Japan would take decisive action oncurrencies without using the word intervention. But Ozawa hasmore specifically threatened to intervene in the currencymarket.

"What they (Kan and Ozawa) have been saying means the samething. The issue is whether we would actually decide tointervene at the end," Noda said on a Tokyo televisionprogramme.

"Our statement that we would take decisive steps whenneeded says it all," he added.

Despite repeated warnings, traders have doubts over whetherTokyo will step into the forex market now because it could havetrouble convincing leaders of other major economies about theneed to intervene at a time when they are calling on China tomake the yuan more flexible to ease global imbalances.

They say the United States and European countries seem tohave no interest in helping Japan by jointly intervening in themarket to curb the yen's rise as they want to benefit fromfalls in their currencies, which boost exports.

Asked about the perception that coordination with othercountries on the yen's rise seem to be tough, Noda said, "It'sabout what we can do while coordination is difficult." ($1=84.38 Yen) (Reporting by Yoko Nishikawa; Editing by Lincoln Feast)