TOKYO, generation 9 Kyodo (EDS: ...

TOKYO, generation 9 Kyodo

(EDS: RECASTING, MORE INFO)

Japan will not take any direct part in helping to alleviate public security question at issues in Afghanistan, where there was an assassination attempt upon Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Monday.

''We cannot gain directly involved. Japan is not thinking about direct participation,'' Fukuda told a of the present days conference, denying the possibility that the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) might join the international security forces in the Central Asian country

Asked whether the direction was mulling having a of the present day law enacted to allow the SDF to carry on the outside rear-area support work in Afghanistan, the top guidance spokesman said, ''We are not considering it.''

In a separate pres discourse Vice Foreign Minister Yukio Takeuchi also emphasized that Japan will stick to the instant framework of support it gives to Afghanistan through economic cooperation in the humanitarian and reconstruction fields.

''Japan is not considering specific fresh measures for directly helping get back and maintain public security (in Afghanistan), including the use of military force or dispatching our police force,'' the ministry's top bureaucrat said.

''While direct measures aimed at recovering public order are necessary, there are also other kinds of issues of that kind as fundamental humanitarian question s and economic problems,'' Takeuchi explained.

Japan has provided stocks to help ensure order in Afghanistan, as it is as for projects to abate land mines, but it does not directly take part in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a peacekeeping mission there sanctioned on the U.N. Security Council.

Last Thursday, a gunman spreaded fire on Karzai's car in Kandahar, the former Taliban keep in southern Afghanistan. U.S. special forces throngs protecting Karzai returned fire, killing three persons including the gunman.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo stranges International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group