The Hindu : International : Japan firm on Iraq mission

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 01, 2004

International

International

Japan firm on Iraq mission

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, OCT. 31. The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, today refused to reverse his policy of keeping his country's troops in Iraq on a "non-combat" mission of reconstruction activities, despite the slaying of a Japanese hostage there. The slain civilian, identified as Shosei Koda, was in Iraq for reasons not identified, notwithstanding the Government's advice to its nationals not to go there. He was the first Japanese hostage to be murdered, while two diplomats and two journalists were ambushed and killed, last November and May this year, respectively. About 600 members of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) have been deployed in Iraq, since the beginning of this year, under a special legislation designed to harmonise the troop despatch with the country's pacifist Constitution.

The Opposition parties today demanded that Mr. Koizumi pull out the SDF personnel, whose deployment was, from the beginning, an unpopular move on two counts: the unstable conditions in the U.S.-controlled Iraq and Japan's `pacifist' foreign policy.

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