Posted on 05/05/2005 12:51:25 AM PDT by Righty_McRight
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan will pull its troops out of Iraq in December when the term of its current humanitarian mission expires, local media quoted government officials as saying.
The government is expected to notify parliament and countries concerned as early as September after studying the situation in Iraq, Kyodo News reported late Wednesday, quoting unnamed government sources.
It will then switch its aid mainly to official development assistance, it said.
Officials were not available for comment on Thursday, a national holiday.
The arrangement is meant to coincide with the scheduled launch of a permanent Iraqi government and the expiration of the deployment of UN-sanctioned multinational forces in Iraq at the end of this year, Kyodo said.
Officially pacifist Japan has stationed about 600 troops on a non-combat mission in the southern Iraq city of Samawa to help with humanitarian reconstruction work.
The deployment, which began in December 2003, is Japan's first since World War II in a country where fighting is under way.
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