The government will not suspend efforts to evacuate Japanese nationals and others from Afghanistan following terror attacks at Kabul's international airport, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said Friday.
"The situation is volatile and unpredictable, but we want to continue making further efforts," Kato said at a press conference.
The government has dispatched Foreign Ministry officials and Self-Defense Forces personnel to the international airport in Kabul to gather information and coordinate with relevant organizations, with the aim of completing evacuations by the end of Friday.
The government was considering chartering a bus to transport Japanese nationals to the airport.
"We want to evacuate as many people as possible today," a senior official of the Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The government had dispatched Air Self-Defense Force C-2 and C-130 transport planes to Kabul's international airport before the attacks on Thursday, but as Japanese nationals, local staff and their family members were not at the airport, the ASDF planes returned to their operational base in Islamabad, Pakistan.
According to sources, the government expects to transport up to 500 evacuees in ASDF planes, most of whom are Afghans who had been working at the Japanese Embassy and their families, among other local staff. Japanese nationals account for only a small number of the evacuees.
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