BANGKOK, 26 March 2003 — Thailand said yesterday the Iraqi Embassy in Bangkok had shut down voluntarily after the Thai government expelled 11 Iraqis, including three diplomats, last week. Thailand’s Foreign Ministry denied it had responded to a US demand that governments close Iraqi diplomatic missions on their territory, saying the embassy had closed of its own accord without giving a reason. “We learned about their closure after they put a ‘shut down’ sign in front of the embassy yesterday,” ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow told Reuters. “We understand that after the (expulsion) incident last week there was only one diplomat working in the embassy.”
Last week, Thailand expelled three low-ranking Iraqi diplomats and eight other Iraqis, including one with alleged links to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, on grounds of national security as the United States began an attack on Iraq. Thailand, a close ally of the United States on most issues, has maintained cordial relations with Baghdad in recent months and had urged further diplomacy to avoid war.
Meanwhile, Japanese police yesterday arrested a 37-year-old man suspected of threatening to bomb the Iraqi Embassy in Tokyo, a police spokesman said. Hiroshi Kawamura had allegedly called the embassy 10 times since last week to threaten to bomb the office, the spokesman said. “He told a Japanese female secretary at the embassy that he would bomb the embassy,” he said.
The Japanese government remained cautious, meanwhile, about whether it would close the embassy and expel seven Iraqi diplomats including the charge d’affaires following a US request to do so. There has been no Iraqi ambassador posted to Tokyo since the 1991 Gulf War.
“We should make our own judgment and I directed the foreign ministry to do so,” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. “We need to examine whether it is necessary now to shut down the Iraqi embassy, and we need to consider problems stemming from the shutdown, such as losing diplomatic channels,” Senior Vice Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told a news conference. Japan’s own embassy in Baghdad is shut and officials are concerned that shutting the Iraqi mission in Tokyo would cut direct communication with Iraq about Japanese nationals in Iraq.
