Following media reports that Japan would pull its ground troops from Iraq by May this year, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday that he will carefully decide the time.

"The Self-Defense Forces (SDF) are not supposed to permanently operate in Iraq, so we have to figure out the withdrawal timing carefully," Kyodo News quoted Koizumi as saying.

The premier said the decision will be made in consideration of several factors such as security and political process in Iraq as well as bilateral ties with the United States.

"I will have to consider comprehensively what assistance we will continue with from now on," he said.

Japan has stationed some 600 ground troops in Samawah, southern Iraq, for a non-combat reconstruction mission since early 2004. Recently, media reports say that the Ground Self-Defense Forces will start packing in mid-March and return to Japan by the end of May.

It is also reported that Japan is planning to expand the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF)'s Kuwait-based mission in response to the requests from the United States.

Source: Xinhua