Vice President Dick Cheney was pledging U.S. support to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in pressing ahead with plans to double Japan's noncombat forces in Iraq despite the furor over the abduction of three citizens, U.S. officials said Sunday. The kidnapping of the Japanese civilians by Iraqi militants cast a pall over Cheney's visit to Japan, his first stop on a weeklong Asia trip that also is taking the vice president to China and South Korea. Cheney attended Easter services with his wife, Lynne, at a nondenominational English-speaking Protestant church in Tokyo. After a stop at the U.S. Embassy, Cheney planned to meet with Koizumi and other officials Monday, with the kidnappings expected to come up. The captors originally said they would kill the three captives if Japan did not pull its forces out by Sunday. Later, the kidnappers indicated they had decided to release their captives.
By early Sunday afternoon in Tokyo, a senior government official said there was still no word of a release. Japan has refused to pull out its troops, but the nation is deeply divided on their presence in Iraq. Cheney was keeping in close touch with the White House and Bush administration officials, monitoring the developments in Iraq and elsewhere," spokesman Kevin Kellems said. The vice president is asking Japan and South Korea, which both have troops in Iraq, to stay the course. |