Asia-Pacific

PM: Japan not to provide more aid for Afghanistan

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-02 21:09

TOKYO: Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Wednesday welcomed a US pledge to provide additional troops to the country but said that his nation will not provide extra aid to Afghanistan.

Hatoyama claimed that the long-term goal of the US president is to help stabilise Afghanistan through international aid, and not through military interventions. "I believe that this is one of the president's aims," he said.

The prime minister added, however, that Japan would not provide more than the maximum of 5 billion yen that it pledged in October.

Japan's aid package will focus on getting feet on the ground to provide such essential infrastructural needs as medical facilities and schools, but will not be involved in maintaining security.

Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said that he believed Washington was likely to ask for more aid, after Obama called on its allies to provide extra support for the effort in Afghanistan. He said he believed Washington feared Afghanistan could turn into another "Vietnam or Iraq."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano also said earlier Wednesday that the Japanese government welcomed the new US strategy of sending in an additional 30,000 troops and beginning withdrawal from the nation in July 2011.

Japan is set to end a mission refueling US and allied military equipment in the Indian Ocean in January next year and focus on providing aid to Afghanistan.