Talks as hostage deadline nears

Japan has opened an emergency office at its diplomatic mission in Jordan to co-ordinate rescue efforts for its three citizens taken hostage in neighbouring Iraq, a Japanese Embassy official said today.

A government task force led by Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s special envoy, arrived earlier in the Jordanian capital, Amman, said the embassy’s deputy chief of mission, Jun Yoshida.