TOKYO, 21 Jun: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday announced plans to visit Lithuania next month to attend a NATO leaders\u2019 summit as his country steps up cooperation with the Western organization amid China\u2019s increasingly assertive military activity.
\nKishida stressed the importance of dialogue with China in order to develop \u201cconstructive and stable\u201d relationship with Beijing while his country cooperates with its key ally, the United States. He said the state of U.S.-China relations are crucial to international peace and stability.
\nAt a news conference marking the end of a five-month long parliamentary session, Kishida said reinforcing diplomatic and security measures were among his top policy priorities in the first half of this year. The goal he said, is \u201cto raise Japan\u2019s presence in the international society, to defend the peace of our country and the people\u2019s lives.\u201d
\nJapan has been strengthening ties with NATO against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and concerns that it may embolden China\u2019s already assertive military activity in East Asia.
\nThe prime minister said he will join NATO leaders at the July 11-12 summit in Lithuania at the invitation of the organization. He said he also will visit NATO headquarters in Belgium. Discussions are also underway to open a NATO office in Japan.
\nDescribing the current security environment of the global community as \u201cthe most severe and complex\u201d of the postwar era, Kishida vowed to \u201cfully utilize diplomatic tools\u201d to contribute to the peace and stability of the global community while serving Japan\u2019s national interest.
\nKishida said Japan will cooperate with the United States on China policy, while encouraging Beijing to fulfill its responsibility as a global power to observe international rules and order.
\nJapan is increasingly concerned about China\u2019s coercive activity in the region, especially around Japanese-controlled disputed East China Sea islands that Beijing also claims.
\n\u201cIt is important to continue making effort to have close dialogue at all levels, including myself, and in that process I will consider my possible visit to China, though nothing has been decided right now,\u201d Kishida said.
\nHis comment comes on the heels of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u2019s meeting earlier this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where they agreed to stabilize their countries\u2019 deteriorated ties but fell short of resuming military-to-military contacts aimed at avoiding mishaps and conflict over Taiwan.
\nKishida also stressed the importance of dialogue with North Korea, and reiterated that he is stepping up his effort toward achieving a possible summit with leader Kim Jong Un on the decades-old issue of abductions of Japanese nationals by Pyongyang. The issue was only partially resolved and North Korea has never provided a full account for those still believed to be held.
\nWith many families of the abductees growing older, resolving the problem has become an increasingly urgent human rights issue, Kishida said. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOKYO, 21 Jun: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday announced plans to visit Lithuania next month to attend a NATO leaders\u2019 summit as his country steps up cooperation with the Western organization amid China\u2019s increasingly assertive military activity. Kishida stressed the importance of dialogue with China in order to develop \u201cconstructive and stable\u201d relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-218872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}