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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Japan set to extend Afghan support mission: report |
| 2005-05-18 |
| TOKYO - Japan will extend a law allowing its troops to provide rearguard military support for US-led operations in Afghanistan by two years, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. The counter-terrorism law, first passed in November 2001 over widespread opposition, allowed Japan to deploy its navy to the Indian Ocean in the first post-World War Two dispatch to a war situation and set the stage for a separate law allowing it to send troops to Iraq on a reconstruction mission. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is likely to convey Tokyo's intention to extend the law when he meets Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah later on Wednesday, according to the report in financial daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The extended mission could include the dispatch of P3C patrol planes in addition to the refuelling and other support services Japan currently supplies, it said. The present two-year extension to the law is due to expire in November. The government is currently planning to submit legislation extending support to the autumn session of parliament. But if the current parliament session, set to end on June 19, is extended it could submit the legislation in this session. |
| Posted by:Steve White |