An Iraqi group which said it kidnapped three Japanese hostages has said it will release them within 24 hours, abandoning a threat to kill them, Arabic television station Al Jazeera said today.
"They will release them in 24 hours in response to a call from the Muslim Clerics Association," Al Jazeera said, referring to a body of Iraqi religious scholars.
An Al Jazeera spokesman told journalists the Qatar-based channel received the information in a fax from the group called Saraya al-Mujahideen.
Earlier, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi appealed for the release of the hostages as protesters called for Tokyo to withdraw its troops to save the captives' lives.
"The three Japanese hostages are private individuals, and friends of Iraq...The people of Japan and I strongly demand for an immediate and safe release of the three hostages," she said today.
The video message came with less than 24 hours to go until a deadline set by the kidnappers, who had threatened to burn the hostages alive if Japanese troops did not pull out of Iraq.
Japan was stunned on Thursday when an unknown group released a video showing the hostages, blindfolded and with a gun to their heads.
On Saturday, a group calling itself the "Brigades of the Hero Martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin" said they were holding 30 foreign hostages and threatened to decapitate them unless U.S. forces lifted their blockade of the Iraqi town of Falluja.
"We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages," a masked gunman said in an footage aired by Arab TV station, Al Arabiya. The footage showed no hostages.
A Japanese foreign ministry official said the ministry was checking the report and could not comment whether any Japanese, apart from the three hostages, had gone missing in Iraq.
Some 1,000 protesters demanding troops come home gathered near Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's office hours before U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived to start of a three-nation Asian tour.
"Our will is being tested in Iraq as we have seen in the heavy fighting this week," Cheney said en route to Tokyo. "It is absolutely essential that we finish the task at hand."
Koizumi, facing his toughest test, has vowed not to pull out the troops, but some analysts say mishandling the crisis could bring down his government.
The three are Imai, who had planned to look into the effects of depleted uranium weapons; female aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34; and freelance reporter Soichiro Koriyama, 32.
The public was sharply divided over the decision to deploy some 1,000 troops to Iraq and nearby countries in Japan's riskiest military operation since World War Two.
Critics say the deployment violates Japan's pacifist constitution and resent what they see as U.S. pressure to make the decision. Supporters say it is time for Japan to take a bolder role in global security.
A survey by Kyodo news agency found that 45.2 percent of respondents opposed the decision to keep the troops in Iraq and 43.5 percent supported it.