Asia-Pacific

Koizumi to announce Iraq withdrawal next week

(AFP)
Updated: 2006-06-16 17:15

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will announce next week that Japan is ending a military mission in Iraq, its first since World War II to a country where fighting is underway, reports say.

Japanese troops are constitutionally barred from combat and are protected in part by British troops who have told Tokyo they will transfer authority in the area next week to Iraqi troops, the reports said.

Koizumi expects to announce the pullout on Wednesday, Kyodo News said. The Mainichi Shimbun reported in its evening edition that the withdrawal would be complete by mid-July.

Japanese officials had sent repeated signals that the pullout would take place in the summer as the domestically unpopular deployment would have run its course.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the government spokesman, earlier Friday denied that Britain had set a date to leave the southern city of Samawa where the 600 Japanese troops are based.

But Foreign Minister Taro Aso later said that Japan can "decide on the timeframe of a withdrawal fairly soon."

The humanitarian mission first launched in 2003 marks the first time since World War II that Japan has sent armed forces to a country where fighting is underway.

The deployment has been widely viewed as a way for Japan to exert influence as more than an economic power.

The troops have not suffered casualties or even fired their weapons due to Japan's pacifist 1947 constitution and have relied on Australian, British and earlier on Dutch forces for protection.

The mission has aimed to rebuild the area around the southern city of Samawa. As the region is relatively peaceful, Japan calls it a "non-combat zone" in Iraq so as not to violate the constitution.