UN team meets Iraqis as Japan troops arrive on hot mission

By: Hamoud Kufi

BAGHDAD, Iraq: The head of a UN experts team pledged on Sunday the United Nations will do “everything possible” to help Iraq regain its sovereignty, and separately Japanese soldiers arrived here on a controversial and risky mission since World War II.

The UN team chief’s remarks came after the experts met Iraq's interim leadership in a first step to assess whether the war-torn country is ripe for elections before self-rule.

Some 80 members of the Ground Self-Defense Force crossed the border from Kuwait into southern Iraq early in the morning in a convoy of 25 jeeps, trucks and armored vehicles emblazoned with white-and-red Japanese flags.

They will use their weapons, including Japanese-made submachine guns and anti-tank guns, only in self-defense.

The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that the first batch of troops had arrived later Sunday in the southern holy city of Samra, where they will set up camp. Samra houses the holy shrines of Imamain Askariyain (p). Japanese will provide medical services, building water supply and other postwar reconstruction activities.

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