By KUNA,
Tokyo : A team of Japanese government officials has left for Afghanistan to explore possibility of dispatching the first batch of japanese troops there on a reconstruction mission, Kyodo News Agency said Monday, citing government sources.
The team, comprising officials of the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Force (SDF) officers, is expected to visit Kabul as well as provincial cities where airlifting of supplies, road repairs and other forms of infrastructure development may be conducted by Japanese troops, according to the report.
Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force already conducts refueling operations in the Indian Ocean to support US-led anti-terrorism activities in and around Afghanistan. However, the nation’s war-renouncing constitution limits the overseas SDF deployment to non-combat zones, therefore dispatching the Ground Self-Defense Force to Afghanistan requires legislation specifically for that purpose. The government at the earliest could start formulating a legal framework to enable an SDF mission to Afghanistan if Parliament is convened for an extraordinary session in August.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura have advocated considering an SDF mission to Afghanistan.