Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged his cabinet members on Tuesday to do their utmost to secure the safe release of three Japanese hostages in Iraq, Japan's top government spokesman said.

"We have yet to confirm the safety of the hostages or their whereabouts," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a press conference Tuesday morning after a cabinet meeting.

The premier told his ministers at the cabinet meeting to do their utmost for the quick solution of the hostage issue, though information on the situation is entangled and confusing, Fukuda said.

The three hostages have not been seen since April 6, when they left Amman in Jordan to travel overland to Baghdad. An armed group,which calls itself Saraya al-Mujahideen, claimed to have abducted them and threatened to kill them if Japan did not pull its troops out of Iraq.

The Qatar-based Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast early Sunday that it had received a faxed message from the hostage-takers saying they would release the hostages within 24 hours.

Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba told a separate press conference, "There is no change in the government's basic policy of keeping Ground Self-Defense Force troops in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah."

Source: Xinhua