Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe abruptly announced that Japan will end its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan in May and withdraw the Ground Self-Defense Force's engineering troops there. The troops have been deployed to the northeast African country for the last five years as part of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS).
The following looks at why the decision to pull out of South Sudan was made and how it may affect future Japanese peacekeeping activities and policies:
Why did Tokyo decide to pull the Self-Defense Forces from South Sudan?