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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Wednesday he has no knowledge of a request from the United States for Japan to send Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to postwar Iraq to help maintain public order.
"I haven't heard of it," Koizumi said at his office, adding that Japan can only make a decision based on what the SDF can, what authorities can do and what is necessary to reconstruct Iraq.
The Japanese premier also denied that the secretaries general of his ruling coalition had informed the government of the US request.
US Ambassador to Japan Haward Baker filed such a request during a meeting with senior lawmakers of the ruling parties, according to two major dailies Wednesday.
Baker made the request during talks Monday with the secretaries general of Japan's three ruling coalition parties, the Liberal Democratic Party, the New Komeito Party and the New Conservative Party, according to reports by the Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun newspapers Wednesday.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda also said the government has yet to learn whether Baker had made such a request.
(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2003)
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