US-Japan military pact still strong, says Lawless
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HAGATNA, Guam  - Japan's increasing military role   was indicative of U.S. support for a continued U.S.-Japan   alliance, Richard Lawless, the U.S. deputy defense   undersecretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs, said on Tuesday.
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Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said  Japan will not pull its troops out of Iraq despite threats by a  group led by an al Qaeda ally to behead a Japanese hostage,  Japanese media reported on Wednesday.
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Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet agreed Thursday to extend the deployment of Japan's 600 non-combat troops in Iraq for up to one year despite widespread public opposition and condemnations by political opponents.
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US Secretary of State Colin Powell, left, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi before their meeting at the Foreign Ministry&#39;s annex in Tokyo Sunday, Oct. 24, 2004.
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Japan won&#39;t yield to terrorism or withdraw its troops from Iraq, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, in response to reports an Iraqi group kidnapped a Japanese man.
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Japan&#39;s Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, says his country will never go to war with China, and that bilateral ties are satisfactory.
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Japan and the United States, facing North Korea&#039;s apparent plans to test-launch a long-range missile, have agreed to deploy advanced Patriot interceptor missiles on American bases in Japan for the first time, officials said Monday.
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The White House said Wednesday that it would expect Japan to keep supporting US-led military operations in Afghanistan despite the resignation of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
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Faced with a new hostage-taking in Iraq, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appears determined not to break the coalition a week before the US election in which he openly supports George W. Bush, analysts said.
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Japan adopted new defense guidelines Friday, including the relaxation of an arms-export ban that will facilitate missile security with Washington, another sign of Tokyo&#39;s
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Japan&#39;s junior ruling coalition partner backed extending the country&#39;s troop dispatch to Iraq for another year after authorization for the current mission expires Dec. 14.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied on Monday that a groundbreaking security agreement he is to sign with Australian Prime Minister John Howard in Tokyo this week was aimed at reining in China.
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Japanese Finance Minister Koji Omi said on Monday that he agreed with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that both Japanese and U.S. economies are firm.
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Yasuo Fukuda, the front-runner to be Japan&#39;s next prime minister, pledged Sunday to strengthen ties with China and said he would not visit a war shrine seen as a symbol of Tokyo&#39;s wartime past.
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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday expressed his belief that it was possible for Japan to win a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council without rewriting its constitution.
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Japan's defense minister said Saturday that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war.
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TOKYO, Dec. 9 -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet agreed on Thursday to extend the deployment of Japan's 600 non-combat troops in Iraq for up to one year, despite condemnation of the mission by more than half of the Japanese public and opposition political parties.