A key religious figure from the southern Iraqi city of Samawah asked Japan on Tuesday to send more troops to facilitate the city's rehabilitation.
"We do not want a withdrawal, but (instead the dispatch of) more troops," Said Ali Salman Jabar, a Shiite Muslim leader, was quoted as telling Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi during a morning meeting. "That would be a great help for us."
The Ground Self-Defense Force troops are currently carrying out reconstruction work in Samawah.
The visiting Iraqi party, consisting of two religious leaders, three doctors and two elementary school teachers, also asked for Japan's cooperation in such areas as sewage disposal.
The GSDF troops in Samawah have been offering water purification services and medical advice as well as working to rebuild schools since February. The GSDF is now carrying out its first troop rotation, with the second contingent arriving as the first group returns to Japan in batches. Japan has said it intends to maintain the troop level at about 550.
The party also met with Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba and asked that the troops stay for "as long as possible," an agency official said.
The local religious society, headed by Almaili, has said it is determined to protect the GSDF in Samawah and issued a decree to that end.
Ishiba expressed gratitude, but said that while there is apparent demand for assistance in power generation, the SDF has its limits, the official said.
The party is in Japan at the invitation of the Tokyo Foundation, a private research institute.