GENERAL SANTOS (Philippines), May 28: Japanese diplomats re-established contact on Saturday with a mediator who has promised to bring two former World War Two soldiers down from the southern Philippine mountains. Japanese officials and media have rushed to Mindanao island after reports this week that two elderly men are the first cases in 30 years of war-time stragglers being found.

“We have had several telephone conversations with him since Friday,” Japanese embassy spokesman Shuhei Ogawa told reporters, referring to the mediator.

“We are working out a plan to deal with this issue.”

He said the contact, a Japanese trader who only gave his name as Asano, asked for more time due to poor security in the mountains and concerns about the throng of media waiting in General Santos City.

Japanese diplomats had expected to meet the men on Friday.

But Japanese media have reported that the men’s names — given as Yoshio Yamakawa, 87, and Tsuzuki Nakauchi, 85, — appeared in official records as being in an imperial army unit that was posted to Mindanao near the end of the war.

The reports said they had become separated from their unit and had settled with tribal communities in the mountains — which are now controlled by communist and Muslim rebels — afraid they would face a court-martial if they returned to Japan.—Reuters