Japan Will Send Its First Troops to Mideast for U.N. Duty in Golan

Japan will send troops to the Middle East next year for the first time in its history as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights, a Japanese Socialist party spokesman said Friday.

After months of deliberations, the executive board of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama’s Socialists approved the plan Friday to send troops to the Golan Heights to replace a Canadian transport unit, the spokesman said.

Details of February’s deployment will be formally announced at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, he said.

The plan has been pushed by the Liberal Democratic Party, senior partners in Murayama’s coalition government.

The Socialist party had been blocking it on grounds that it could violate the country’s controversial 1992 Peacekeeping Operations Act, which does not allow Japanese troops to be used in “combat” roles, such as for separating warring parties.

Under a draft plan approved by the Socialists, Japanese troops will take on a limited transport role in the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force.

They will not transport weapons or ammunition for troops of other countries, and will retain the right to withdraw at any time on orders from Tokyo rather than from the U.N. force.