Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met Friday with US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who is visiting Tokyo in an apparent gesture to press Japan to commit troops to postwar Iraq.  

Koizumi and Rumsfeld are expected to discuss the situation in Iraq, a major topic amid mounting concerns over the war-ravaged country's deteriorating security.

Rumsfeld arrived in Tokyo earlier in the day, his first visit to Japan since he became defense secretary in January 2001.

According to Kyodo News, Tokyo is the first leg of Rumsfeld's weeklong Asia trip apparently aimed at pressing Japan and South Korea to keep up their commitments on Iraq amid mounting worries about the deteriorating local security.

"We will discuss the topic as a matter of course," Koizumi said ahead of the meeting, alluding to Japan's decision Thursday to overhaul its plans on Iraq reconstruction, including the planned dispatch of Self-Defense Forces (SDF) troops by the end of this year.

Japan plans to tell the US defense secretary it will examine Iraq's security situation and make a decision at its own discretion, Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said in an earlier press conference.

Rumsfeld will meet with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Ishiba on Saturday.

"The Japanese government will examine the situation and make a decision itself," said Ishiba, director general of the Defense Agency.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda also said at a separate press conference that "There are times when we have to say what we think."

Japan decided Thursday to drastically review its program to help rebuild Iraq due to the worsening security situation, especially in the southern part of the country, where it has been planning to send the SDF troops by the end of the year.

"We could send the SDF there if circumstances permit. But they do not," Fukuda said following Wednesday's suicide truck bombing at a base for Italian forces in the southern city of Nasiriyah that killed at least 26 people.

Ishiba said Japan will soon send a team of about 10 SDF experts to Iraq to examine whether the Japanese troops can still protect themselves, and that he expects the United States to understand Japan's stand.

Separately, US officials said overnight that the United States understands Japan's decision to give up plans to send SDF troops to Iraq by the end of this year but anticipates that Japan will eventually dispatch them to help with Iraq's reconstruction.

"Japan has said it wants to think about the timing of that. We understand that," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was quoted by Kyodo News.

According to Kyodo, the incident also prompted South Korea to order its troops operating in southern Iraq to halt all activities until security in the region is fully guaranteed. South Korea has sent about 450 non-combat troops to Nasiriyah.

The move came days after South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun instructed his national security staff to limit the level of additional troops to Iraq to under 3,000, a level drastically lower than that requested by the United States.

The Japanese defense minister also said he expects to discuss with Rumsfeld how the two countries should review the bilateral security alliance in light of new threats posed by the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

The United States is planning to begin talks shortly with Japan and with South Korea on drastically realigning US troops in the two countries, Rumsfeld was quoted Thursday en route from Washington to Guam, where he stopped over Thursday before arriving in Tokyo.

He will visit Okinawa, where most US bases in Japan are located, on Sunday and meet Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine before leaving the same day for South Korea.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2003)