SEOUL, 19 June 2004 — South Korea will start deploying some 3,000 troops to northern Iraq from August on a relief and rehabilitation mission, the Defense Ministry said yesterday.
The contingent of mostly non-combatants, the third largest in the US-led coalition in the war-torn country, will be based in Arbil, in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, the ministry said.
A 900-strong advance party will leave for Iraq in early August, followed by a 1,100-member main body of troops with a third group of 1,000 joining them later, ministry spokesman Nam Dai-Yeon told a briefing.
“The main party will arrive between late August and early September and the rest will arrive after the main party has settled down,” he said.
The announcement came a day after the ruling Uri Party endorsed the troop dispatch and followed a meeting of President Roh Moo-hyun’s National Security Council called to hammer out final details of the deployment.
“The dispatch of additional troops to Iraq is aimed at supporting efforts for peace and rehabilitation in Iraq, cementing our alliance with the United States, and contributing to our national interest and world peace,” said Nam.
President Roh has championed the troop dispatch as a way of improving bilateral ties with the United States, strained over the North Korean nuclear standoff.
Though South Korea is sending fewer troops than the US requested and limiting their role to humanitarian rather than pacification work, the decision to dispatch troops, announced in November last year, has triggered pro- and anti- war demonstrations throughout the country.
Parliament endorsed the decision in February but attached strict conditions to the deployment, stipulating that it was for relief and reconstruction work only and would avoid combat.
Opposition mounted as the death toll in Iraq rose and following revelations concerning the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers.
The sensitive deployment of South Korean troops was originally set for April but delayed amid the worsening security situation in Iraq.
Following parliamentary elections here in April which handed a majority to the reformist Uri Party, a minority of lawmakers have been calling for a repeal of the motion supporting the deployment.
In Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to allow Japanese troops to join the multinational force in Iraq.
Japan, one of Washington’s staunchest backers over the Iraq war, has around 550 troops in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa providing post-war humanitarian assistance in its most controversial and dangerous mission since 1945.
“Under the multinational force, the Self-Defense Forces (Japanese military) will continue their activities,” after the handover of power to Iraqis on June 30, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference after the Cabinet meeting.
“The Self-Defense Forces will act under the Japanese command and not participate in military activities,” he said. “It is in line with our constitution.” The UN-authorized force will be responsible for security and anti-insurgency operations in Iraq. The prospect of its involvement in combat operations is problematic for Tokyo as Japan’s post-war pacifist constitution bans the use of force in settling interna
