WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Japan will put up about ¥14.1 billion in official development assistance to pay the salaries of all 82,000 police officers in Afghanistan as part of efforts to help rebuild the war-torn country, sources close to Japanese-U.S. relations said Saturday.
Japan will pay the officers' salaries for about six months until the presidential election ends in August, the sources said. It is unconventional for Japan to use ODA to play the salaries of another country's public employees.
Japan is ready to provide about ¥5 billion for cooperation in holding the election, ¥15.4 billion for antiterror and security measures, and ¥9.7 billion for fighting poverty, the sources said.
The money for the police salaries is included in the antiterror and security portion of the aid program and will be extended to a United Nations Development Programme special fund.
Afghanistan is not obliged to pay back the assistance money.
Tokyo is expected to notify the United States when Japan International Cooperation Agency President Sadako Ogata and Motohide Yoshikawa, Japan's special envoy in charge of aid for Afghanistan and Pakistan, meet with U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke in Washington on Monday.