Japan decided Monday to expedite the pullout of two medical teams in Iraq due to deteriorating security, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said.
The teams, from the semigovernmental Japan International Cooperation Agency and the government's advance refugee relief program, were dispatched to areas near the Syrian border to provide relief for Iraqi refugees.
The JICA team, which has been in the area since March 22, was supposed to be replaced by a team that was to leave Japan on Monday, but the new team postponed its departure. Relief workers who were to follow the government advance team will also remain in Japan, Motegi said in a news conference.
The five-member advance group left Japan on Friday to study relief activities for people fleeing the war ahead of the deployment of a full medical team.
The mission was in response to a request from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Japan is worried about security in the region after the United States accused Syria on Friday of allowing military equipment to enter Iraq and be used to counter the U.S-led attack.
Motegi meanwhile said Japan is unlikely to use government airplanes to evacuate Japanese nationals in Kuwait.
There are 85 Japanese nationals in Kuwait but none has expressed a wish to evacuate, he said, and commercial flights are still available.
Two government planes left for Jordan on Sunday night to deliver relief supplies for people affected by the war, the first time Japan has used such planes for overseas humanitarian aid under a law on cooperation with U.N. peacekeeping operations.