An Australian decision to send an extra 450 troops to Iraq to protect Japanese engineers there was not taken in exchange for a free trade deal with Tokyo, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday after critics questioned his motives.
Howard's decision this week went against a two-year-old promise not to increase Australian military strength in Iraq. The prime minister said he made it after personal approaches from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and British leader Tony Blair.
The 450 troops will replace withdrawing Dutch soldiers in safeguarding Japanese military engineers who are carrying out humanitarian work in southern Iraq. Australia has about 900 troops in the Middle East, but only 300 in Iraq.
The opposition Australian Greens Party claimed Howard offered the extra troops ahead of a planned visit to Japan in April as part of a strategy to convince Tokyo to agree to a free trade deal.
But Howard said that neither a free trade pact nor any other economic trade-offs were discussed with Koizumi.
"Australia will continue, separate and apart from this decision, to negotiate with Japan on things of that kind," Howard told Japanese public broadcaster NHK in a television interview. "But in no way did I say to the Japanese government that if we do this, will you do something else -- it's not like that."
Japan, Australia's biggest export market, would not be asked to contribute to the A$300 million (US$236 million) a year cost of keeping the additional troops in Iraq, Howard said.
"There is only one source of remuneration for Australian troops and that is from the Australian government acting on behalf of the Australian people," Howard said in the interview.
The Howard government has always insisted that its foreign policy is separate from trade considerations.
However, many see a free trade pact between Australia and the US as Washington's reward to Canberra for sending 2,000 troops to Iraq.
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