Japan passes aid package for Afghanistan (Roundup)

Nov 10, 2009, 7:12 GMT

   Tokyo - The Japanese government on Tuesday passed an aid package worth 5 billion dollars over the next five years to help reconstruction in Afghanistan.

   The package is to replace the military aid for the war in Afghanistan, which involves a controversial refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean.

   Japan plans to support training Afghan policemen in countries like Indonesia and vowed to pay half the wages of Afghanistan's 80,000-strong police force.

   The aid package also includes measures for the re-integration of former Taliban fighters. Furthermore, Japan reiterated its support to Afghanistan's neighbour Pakistan, for whom it pledged aid funds worth up to 1 billion dollars in April, vowing to speed up channelling funds into infrastructure and refugee aid.

   The decision came ahead of a meeting between Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and US President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to visit Japan Friday.

   The new Japanese government said it would not extend the refuelling mission, in which the country's navy assists in refuelling US and other nations' vessels involved in military operations in Afghanistan.

   Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan has been long opposed to the refuelling mission, saying it lacked UN approval and, therefore, Japan, which is banned from participating in foreign military missions by its pacifist constitution, should not participate.

   The refuelling mission was conducted on the basis of an anti-terrorism law passed in October 2001 and since then has been extended several times by previous governments led by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

   The cancellation is part of Hatoyama's attempts to put relations with the United States, Japan's strongest post-war ally and military protector, on a more level basis.

   While Obama and Hatoyama are expected to discuss Japan's new aid package during their meetings, the more controversial topic of moving the main US military base on Japan's Okinawa island is unlikely to be discussed in great depth, media reports said.

   The US rejects Hatoyama's demands to renegotiate a 2006 deal on the unpopular Futemma base, which is home to the majority of the about 36,000 US soldiers deployed in Japan.

   About 20,000 residents recently protested against the relocation to another part of the island, demanding the base's closure.