Japan’s defense chief wants to keep troops in Iraq

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s defense chief, just back from a
visit to Iraq, said on Monday he wanted to extend the
deployment of Japanese non-combat troops in southern Iraq, as
security conditions in the area were stable.

Japan is widely expected to announce an extension to the
mission’s mandate, which expires on December 14.

Later in the day Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who
is on a visit to Tokyo, also urged Japan’s Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi to keep the troops in place, saying it was
too early for a withdrawal.

Defense Chief Fukushiro Nukaga said he told Koizumi that
local Iraqi leaders had asked that the 550 Japanese troops
remain to carry on with their reconstruction work.

“I did not discuss the extension with the prime minister,
but given the local demand and the need to cooperate with the
international community, I think it is better to extend,”
Nukaga told reporters after his meeting with Koizumi.

“I will make a decision comprehensively taking into account
my meeting with the Iraqi prime minister,” Koizumi told
reporters ahead of his meeting with Jaafari.

Jaafari said in a meeting with Koizumi he wanted to express
his gratitude for Japan’s support on behalf of the Iraqi
people, an official at the Japanese foreign ministry said.

He added that he hoped the troops would stay in place.

“The fact that the prime minister has expressed such a high
opinion of the troops’ activities must have a great bearing on
the decision we make,” the foreign ministry official quoted
Koizumi as replying.

The government is expected to extend the mission by a year,
aiming to withdraw the troops by the end of 2006, recent
newspaper reports have said.

Japan’s dispatch has won praise from close ally Washington,
but is opposed by most Japanese voters. In a Mainichi newspaper
poll published in October, 77 percent of those surveyed said
they were against an extension.

The Japanese troops’ activities are limited by Japan’s
pacifist constitution, and they do not take part in operations
to maintain security. Still, the deployment is Japan’s riskiest
overseas military mission since World War Two.