Japan reopens Embassy in Iraq

By F.J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, NOV. 29. Japan has just reopened its Embassy in Baghdad on a functional basis to cope with the demand from business but it is also a certain sign of a step-by-step normalisation with Iraq.

Quite typical of almost all countries that are moving back to do business with Iraq, the official Japanese position is of ``hoping'' that the regime of Mr. Saddam Hussein will implement all United Nations Security Council resolutions. Japan tried exactly a year back to reopen its mission in the Iraqi capital but backed off under U.S. pressure. Japan is now among the few industrialised nations to reopen its Embassy in Baghdad.

Iraq now pumps out about 2.3 million barrels of oil daily into the market, or close to five per cent of the world's oil trade. Even though there are procedural obstacles by way of monthly price approvals by the U.N., there has been increasing travel by energy related businessmen to Iraq. Consequently, there has been pressure for re-establishing Japanese Government services in Baghdad, notably consular services and protection in case of unanticipated incidents. For the past nine and a half years, Japanese diplomats travelled to Baghdad occasionally from Jordan to render such services. From this month, the office in Baghdad itself will be kept open for three weeks each month.

The Embassy will not grant visas to Iraqi nationals who wish to visit Japan. Japanese officials have clarified that the step is not meant to indicate a business-as-usual relationship with a country under U.N. sanctions. Actually, however, it will be ``business'' as usual because there is realisation that in the past year, companies from China, Russia, India, some European nations and Arab neighbours of Iraq have managed to bag contracts awarded partly on grounds that the governments of some of these countries stuck it out in Baghdad. Japanese business was a year earlier than their Government in foreseeing the de facto slackening of the sanctions regime. For reasons as yet quite unclear, two months ago, the former head of the Japanese Defence Agency (the ex-Minister) said on a tour abroad that Japan must immediately lift its sanctions against Iraq.

Japan has not gone that far and as the chair of the Group of Eight (G-8) has preferred to allow its businesses to deal with Iraq and also provide humanitarian assistance as a government, without actually breaching the sanctions.

The resolve of going ahead this time over U.S. objections is tempered with meeting some of these objections. The specific declaration that the Embassy will not issue visas to Iraqi nationals suggests that it will be some time before Japan will permit senior Iraqi officials to visit Tokyo. The head of the Middle Eastern and African Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry was in Baghdad recently to re-establish the terms for allowing the Embassy to function, but this visit is also expected to be the forerunner of higher level Japanese missions.

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Section  : International
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