An advance team of Japanese soldiers arrived yesterday in Kuwait for training at a US military base before they cross overland to Iraq on a humanitarian mission that puts the nation's soldiers in a combat zone for the first time since World War II.
The approximately 30 soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying military duffel bags, arrived on a commercial flight from Tokyo to prepare for a mission that has run into strong opposition at home. They filed into a waiting, chartered bus, which two US military 4-wheel-drive vehicles escorted out of the airport and off to an American base in the Kuwaiti desert.
When fully in place in Iraq by March, a 1,000-strong Japanese contingent will help purify local water supplies, rebuild schools and provide medical care in southern Iraq. They will carry arms for self-protection, but their role will be noncombatant.
Many Japanese oppose sending troops into Iraq, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's argument that Japan is fulfilling its international commitments hasn't silenced critics. Japan's defeat in World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are considered horrifying reminders of the devastation of war.
The prime minister is also building momentum for a historic rethinking of the constraints placed on the military by the war-renouncing 1947 constitution, written by the US. His party is drafting a revision of the document, which has never been amended.
Although Japanese lawmakers approved noncombat duties with UN peacekeeping operations a decade ago, Japanese peacekeepers never before have been sent into situations as dangerous as post-war Iraq, where guerrilla attacks are a daily occurrence. No Japanese peacekeeper has ever been killed.
The rest of the Japanese force could start leaving Japan this month. After training in Kuwait, Japanese soldiers could start arriving in Iraq in early February. About 600 Japanese ground soldiers are being deployed along with roughly 400 sailors and air force personnel.
A small military team already has flown from Tokyo to inspect the area in southern Iraq where the Japanese will be based.
On Friday, the commander of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, hailed the imminent arrival of Japanese humanitarian troops as a "tremendous contribution."
Sanchez said the US "clearly understands the limitations and the national guidance that has been given to the Japanese troops."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing