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The government decided on Friday to withdraw the Self-Defense Forces from UN peacekeeping operations in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights due to worsening security conditions, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said.
The government will start pulling SDF members out of the UN.
Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights shortly, with all 47 personnel currently engaged expected to return to Japan in about a month, government officials said.
UNDOF has been supervising the ceasefire between Israel and Syria since 1974, but the situation has been deteriorating.
Last July, Syrian troops clashed with rebel forces in a demilitarized area where UNDOF was operating.
The SDF mission in the Golan Heights, which began in 1996, is Japan’s longest running peacekeeping operation.
It includes transportation and other operations.
The government decided in September to withdraw SDF troops from East Timor and in October from Haiti.
With the withdrawal from the Golan Heights, South Sudan will be the only place where the SDF operates on a UN mission.
The SDF currently has a staff of around 350 deployed in the African nation.
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