Japan Details Aid in Iraq Conflict : Gulf crisis: Financial assistance, medical support and nonmilitary cargo transport are among measures listed.

Japan ended weeks of indecision today and announced an aid package for the multinational effort building up in the Persian Gulf to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, who has been battling behind the scenes to win a consensus within his fractious government and ruling party, went on television to announce the measures.

These included offering “considerable” financial assistance to three states--Jordan, Turkey and Egypt--whose economies have been worst hit by a blockade on Iraq.

He said Japan will immediately send about 100 doctors and nurses to the gulf, along with water supply equipment needed for foreign forces there.

It will provide civilian planes and ships to take nonmilitary supplies to the region, where U.S.-led forces are imposing a strict embargo on Iraq, and help finance other states providing further transport.

The only specific sum Kaifu cited was a $10-million grant to Jordan to help defray the cost of receiving thousands of refugees fleeing the crisis zone.

Japan had been under heavy diplomatic pressure from Washington, which is bearing the main burden of resisting the Iraqi threat to the gulf oil fields, to make a major contribution to the multinational forces being rushed into the region.

Japan, which receives about 70% of its oil supplies from the Middle East, has hesitated over committing itself to joining its Western allies beyond an early agreement to back the embargo on Iraq and freeze Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets.

Officials, arguing that Japan’s U.S.-imposed anti-war constitution bars them from sending troops or military equipment outside the country, have sought ways of channeling funds or non-belligerent aid to the region.

Their task has been complicated by the presence of more than 400 Japanese trapped in Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. Last weekend, Baghdad’s culture and information minister warned Tokyo that the status of these civilians could be threatened if it backed the squeeze on Iraq.