Difficult to send troops to Afghanistan, says Japan

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Foreign Minister said Tuesday it would be difficult to send troops to Afghanistan due to the political realities in Tokyo.

Japan, which has been officially pacifist since the end of World War II, earlier this month said it would study whether to send troops to Afghanistan on a reconstruction mission amid a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

But Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said that any decision to send troops would require a special law by parliament, which has been deadlocked for nearly a year since the opposition won control of one house.

"Considering the present situation in parliament, the question arises as to whether it's possible to pass such a law. I would say it would be rather difficult," Komura told a news conference.

"We have felt for some time that we need to do something urgently to meet certain needs of Afghanistan. But we have to consider what we can actually do," he said.

The opposition last year forced a temporary halt to Japan's mission providing fuel and other support in the Indian Ocean to US-led forces operating in Afghanistan, arguing that Tokyo should not be part of "American wars."

Japan offered 550 million dollars for Afghanistan earlier this month at a donors conference in Paris, taking its total contribution since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001 above two billion dollars.

Meanwhile, Germany plans to increase its military contingent in northern Afghanistan by up to 1,000 soldiers, Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said Tuesday.

Jung confirmed the reinforcements would instead shore up reconstruction efforts in the more stable north, where the majority of Germany's 3,500 soldiers in Afghanistan are deployed.

His announcement comes as Germany prepares to take command of NATO's quick reaction force in the north in July, but the ministry has also come under pressure from German commanders urgently demanding more men after a string of attacks on soldiers and their Afghan helpers.

Jung told a press conference that extending the army's mandate to allow it to contribute up to 4,500 troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), would give the German contingent "a little more flexibility" without necessarily deploying the maximum number of soldiers.

The Bundeswehr's current parliamentary mandate expires in mid-October.

Any extension has to be approved by MPs and Jung said he would ask the legislature to prolong the ISAF mandate until December 2009.

At the same time, Jung said, his ministry plans to lower the maximum number of troops it can contribute to the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban from 1,400 to 800 when parliament reviews this mandate in autumn.

The head of parliament's defence committee Reinhold Robbe welcomed the announcement, saying there was currently a shortfall of some 300 to 400 troops in the north.

But Jung was criticised by the opposition Free Democrats for showing a "lack of courage" in tackling the challenges posed by the situation in Afghanistan two years into an insurgency aimed at toppling the US-backed government in Kabul.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan told Focus magazine that German operations in the north were strained to the limit.

"That takes away flexibility for me to react quickly to any worsening in the situation. I will argue this when the extension of the mandate comes up for discussion in the autumn," he said.