Buybacks drove the prices of 10-year government bond futures up on Friday, amid mounting concern over the Iraq situation.

The price of the March futures contract for 10-year bonds rose 0.13 point from Thursday to 142.63 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, sending the yield down 0.011 percentage point to 1.217 percent.

In interdealer trade, the yield on the No. 246 10-year, 0.8 percent government bond fell 0.02 percentage point to 0.840 percent.