JAPAN/IRAQ: Japan will not send troops to Iraq for "several months" irrespective of the security situation, according to a foreign policy official, raising the possibility that Japanese ground forces will not be in place until next year.
As the issue of United Nations involvement in Iraq moved back to the top of the international agenda following Tuesday's bombing in Baghdad, however, officials said the delay was due to logistical rather than political or safety considerations.
Yukio Okamoto, senior foreign policy adviser to Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister, said that before troops could be despatched to Iraq from the Self Defence Forces, Japan's army, they had to work out appropriate rules of engagement, adapt their vehicles to desert conditions and even learn rudimentary Arabic.
A survey mission has been postponed and no new date had been set for its dispatch, he said.
"Other countries may say: 'Why can't you move faster?'," said Mr Okamoto, who has been an architect of Mr Koizumi's policy of greater Japanese involvement in international peacekeeping efforts, a controversial policy because of that country's pacifist constitution. "The reason is we cannot fail on this one. If we do this job right we will be able to respond to similar cases in the future with greater ease."
Mr Koizumi has won much praise in the US for pushing legislation through parliament to allow Japan to send troops to Iraq.
Japan is hoping that greater involvement in peacekeeping efforts will help it shed its image of chequebook diplomacy and add credibility to its long-standing campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council.
Diplomats in Tokyo said any significant delay in sending troops could tarnish much of the goodwill Tokyo has built up with Washington.
"If they can't get ground troops into Iraq by spring, the Americans are going to get mad," said one.
Political analysts say Mr Koizumi cannot afford to risk the death of Japanese peacekeepers before Liberal Democratic party elections next month and possible general elections in November. Analysts say voters could turn sharply against Mr Koizumi if Japanese lives are lost in Iraq.