Japanese government officials scrambled Wednesday to secure the release of a Japanese hostage in Iraq without bowing to the kidnappers' demand for a pullout of Japanese troops in line with an order by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

"The Self-Defense Forces will not withdraw," Koizumi was quoted by Kyodo News during a visit to typhoon-hit areas in west Japan's Hyogo Prefecture. "I cannot allow terrorism to prevail and cannot bow to terrorism."

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura has urged the hostage-takers to free 24-year-old Shosei Koda in an interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite news channel, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said at a press conference.

"The government is taking the kidnappers' 48-hour deadline seriously as a problem that requires an urgent response," Hosoda said.

Senior Vice Foreign Minister Shuzen Tanigawa and an emergency police counterterrorism team, meanwhile, left for the Jordanian capital Amman. Japanese Foreign Ministry also issued a fresh warning to Japanese citizens against visiting Iraq and urged those still in Iraq to leave immediately.

Koda, a video footage of whom was posted on a militant Islamic website Tuesday, is believed to have been kidnapped by a group linked to the al-Qaida network. The group threatened to behead him within 48 hours unless Japan withdraws the SDF troops from Iraq.

Source: Xinhua