Two of the three Japanese hostages released in Iraq have said they want to stay in the troubled nation, prompting disbelief and exasperation among relatives and politicians Friday.
Moments after she was released by a militant group, volunteer worker Nahoko Takato, 34, said on the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera that she wanted to continue her volunteer work in Iraq.
Another released hostage, photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32, told his family he wished to stay to document the war-torn nation, relatives told reporters.
"I will continue my work in Iraq," Takato said in an interview conducted shortly after she was released.
Takato went to Iraq as an unaffiliated volunteer, distributing medicines to Iraqi people and helping street children.
"The kidnappers did things to me that I did not like. But I cannot hate the Iraqi people," she said, wiping away tears.
In the same Al-Jazeera footage, released in Japan on Friday, Koriyama was seen smiling, snapping photos of Takato and the other released hostage Noriaki Imai, 18, and telling them: "My job is to shoot pictures."
It was not immediately clear if the two former hostages were refusing to return to Japan. The government said the hostages were due to fly to Dubai Friday to meet Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa before heading home.
Koriyama, former soldier turned freelance photographer, provided a mass circulation Japanese magazine with pictures of Baghdad after the city fell.
Koriyama's mother Kimiko said he told her on the phone he wanted to remain in Iraq to continue taking pictures.
"I told him, 'What a foolish son you are'," Kimiko told reporters at her home in southern Japan.
"I don't think he realises how much trouble he has caused," she said.
Takato's brother Shuichi also said he told Nahoko to realise the gravity of the situation.
"I want her to rest up and be able to rationally understand the entire ordeal," Shuichi said.
There was no indication of whether the third hostage Imai hoped to stay in Iraq. Imai, who only graduated from high school in March, went to Iraq to write a children's book about the problem of depleted uranium used in coalition munitions, believed to have contaminated parts of Iraq.
The comments from Takato and Koriyama triggered exasperation and anger among Japanese leaders, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who faced the worst crisis of his administration as Tokyo worked intensely for their release.
"So many government staff worked so hard without sleep, without eating, and they are saying such things? They need to become aware," about the work of others, a visibly irritated Koizumi said.
Trade minister Shoichi Nakagawa also reacted angrily.
"Please go if you like. But if anything happens, it is your own responsibility," he said using a press conference to send his message to the former hostages.
The minister in charge of disaster management Kiichi Inoue said the families and the hostages ought to have to pay part of the cost associated with the rescue efforts.
Tokyo would bill the three for part of the cost of chartering an aircraft to transport them from Baghdad to Dubai. The three would also have to pay for a medical checkup and the flight back from Dubai to Japan, the foreign ministry said.
The Japanese media meanwhile treated the news of the release of the three with a mixture of celebration and recrimination.
"It was hard to decide why we were being forced to decide the grave matter of whether to put human lives or national policy first thanks to the reckless behaviour of the three Japanese," said a signed opinion piece in the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, the nation's best-selling daily.
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