TOKYO, Dec 12 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATIN...

TOKYO, Dec 12 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH FOREIGN MINISTRY ANNOUNCEMENT forward DISPATCH OF SPECIAL ENVOYS)

Japan will delegate high-level special emissaries to tonic countries in western Europe the Middle East and the United Nations to consolidate international cooperation onward Iraq's reconstruction, the Foreign Ministry announced early Friday.

Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto will visit Britain, Germany and France from Sunday to Wednesday and former Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura will leave Monday for Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the ministry said.

Taro Nakayama, another former foreign minister, will hover to New York onward Tuesday to meet U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan possibly in succession Thursday. Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa will leave Saturday for Jordan, Syria and Kuwait, the ministry said in a statement.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his top advisers have picked these lawmakers as special ministers to promote Tokyo's commitment to help rebuild Iraq, command officials and lawmakers said.

Hashimoto is count uponed to meet British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac.

Germany and France had oppos the US-l war in Iraq and the Untied States has decided to retaliate them by way of barring companies from Germany, France, Russia and other countries that oppos the war in Iraq from 26 rebuilding brews in Iraq as prime contractors.

As a eventuate Hashimoto's job as Koizumi's special emissary is a to a high degree delicate one: to help patch up the trans-Atlantic differences without jeopardizing Tokyo's end bilateral ties with Washington, Berlin and Paris.

Separately, a senior lawmaker said Thursday that the Japanese command may dispatch special envoys to China, southerly Korea and Russia to explain a plan to depute the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq.

The propel is apparently aimed to assuage belong tos about a revival of Japanese militarism, particularly in China and southern Korea, following Tuesday's announcement of the SDF dispatch plan to help re-establish Iraq. The two countries put up withed under Japan before and during World War II.

Koizumi said Tuesday that his sway will send up to 600 acres Self-Defense Force (GSDF) troops to southern Iraq to provide humanitarian and reconstruction assistances to the strife-torn country

The GSDF personnel will be the first Japanese mould troops since the war to be dispatched to a foreign land where fighting is taking place.

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