Key members of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet effectively agreed Tuesday to keep ground troops in Iraq for another year, and are preparing to make a formal decision possibly Thursday.

"I think it's OK to extend the dispatch (of the Ground Self-Defense Force troops)," Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters Tuesday morning.

Machimura made the comment after emerging from a meeting with Koizumi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda and Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono at the Prime Minister's Official Residence.

During the meeting, Ono, back in Tokyo from a visit to Iraq on Sunday, reported that the security situation in Samawah, the southern Iraq city where some 600 GSDF troops are carrying out humanitarian work, is stable enough to extend their mission for another year.

The Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, New Komeito, will hold separate meetings on the decision Wednesday, and Prime Minister Koizumi will explain it to the public after the extension is officially approved at an extraordinary Cabinet meeting Thursday, officials said.

Speaking to reporters, Machimura quoted a local governor and the commander of the Dutch troops in southern Iraq as saying the security situation there "has improved more than ever before."

Machimura also quoted Ono as saying the SDF troops have taken sufficient safety steps to guard against attacks, including mortar rounds fired at the camp.

About 600 Japanese soldiers have been deployed to Samawah since January. The one-year mission expires Dec. 14.

A special law enacted last year to authorize the deployment stipulates that the SDF can operate only in "noncombat zones."