As Iraq's elections due on Jan. 30 draw near, the US appeals to key allies and international organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations, for boosting their missions and security forces in the violence-torn country began to bear fruit.

Japan's cabinet decided Thursday to extend the Self-Defense Forces' humanitarian assistance operation in Iraq by one year until Dec. 14, 2005.

More than 500 Japanese ground troops are stationed in Iraq's southern city of Samawah, backed up by air and maritime forces in Kuwait. The current one-year mission will expire on Tuesday.

The revised plan left unchanged the cap of 600 ground troops and eight aircraft in the mission.

Also in the new plan, the government showed flexibility in pullout timetable, saying it will pay attention to the progress ofreconstruction activities and Iraq's political process, security conditions, activities of the multinational forces and other issues and respond with appropriate measures when necessary.

On the same day, NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in Brussels that NATO will send some 300 more training staff to Iraq in the coming weeks.

The 300 will move first to Baghdad and to the outskirts of the capital by spring to set up a military academy for the Iraqi armedforces, according to de Hoop Scheffer.

"The training mission in Iraq is running entirely according to schedule," de Hoop Scheffer told a press conference after NATO's foreign ministers' meeting.

"The number of personnel will go up from its present 60 to around 300," he said.

The NATO chief said several NATO allies had come forward with offers of trainers at foreign ministers' meeting, including Poland,Hungary and the Netherlands.

At least 16 of the 26 NATO nations were expected to participatein the mission, but final details were still being worked out, according to NATO officials.

NATO had been struggling for weeks to muster instructors for the mission, for countries like Germany, France, Belgium, Greece and Spain refused to contribute a single soldier. Currently, NATO has around 60 soldiers at its training mission in Baghdad.

Also on Thursday, US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte met with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the United States called for the UN's participation in and support for the elections of Iraq, as said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli at a news briefing.

Ereli said the United Nations has raised the ceiling of its election workers in Iraq from 39 to 56.

Last week, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the extension of some US military units now serving in Iraq and the deployment of additional troops there, to enhance security before the elections in Iraq.

But the parliament of South Korea, a key ally of the United States, Thursday failed to vote on the government's plan to extendthe deployment of 3,600 South Korean troops in Iraq for another year.

Source: Xinhua