RIYADH, 10 January — Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono will arrive here on Saturday for talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Saud Al-Faisal on strengthening bilateral relations and the Middle East peace.
Kono arrived in Doha yesterday on the first leg of a Gulf tour, which will also take him to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Kono's wide-ranging talks with Saudi and GCC officials will focus on commercial ties, energy issues and UN reforms.
"I want to discuss with leading figures in each (Gulf) country ways of strengthening the relationship between Japan and the Gulf in the 21st century," Kano said in Japan when the tour was announced last month.
Saudi Arabia in February refused to renew a 40-year-old Japanese oil concession after Tokyo declined to fund a two-billion-dollar railway in the Kingdom. In 1999, trade between Japan and the six GCC states amounted to $32 billion.
Kono said a settlement of the Iraqi question was essential to maintain security in the Gulf region, calling for Baghdad to implement UN Security Council resolutions and resume dialogue with the world body.
Voicing concern over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said Japan had sent $4.3 million in aid to the Palestinians since the clashes broke out in late September.
Junya Matsuura, first secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Riyadh said commercial relations between Saudi Arabia and Japan were growing progressively. During 1999, Japan imported 930,000 bpd of oil and 78,500 bpd of refined products, mainly naphtha, from Saudi Arabia.
Tokyo has been ranked as the second largest trading partner of the Kingdom after the US with two-way trade exceeding $10.9 billion annually. Japan has launched a training program for Saudis. As many as 1,333 Saudis have participated in the training programs since 1960.
Matsuura said the minister would be accompanied by a 28-member delegation including Yoshiji Nogami, deputy minister for foreign affairs, Shigeru Endo, deputy director general of Middle East affairs, and Yuzo Itagaki, the head of the Japanese Study Group on Islam. The Japanese Foreign Ministry is promoting studies on Islam to ensure a better understanding of the religion, he added.
On the regional level, Japan has been actively engaged in political dialogue with the parties concerned to push forward the Middle East peace process. In fact, the visit of Kono is part of that process. It is important to note here that Tokyo has disbursed $235.8 million since January 1999 until March 2000 for the assistance of the Palestinians.
This is in addition to Japan's assistance made available through the international organizations such as UNDP and UNRWA, which has amounted to $343 million to date. Tokyo has also implemented some 22 projects within the framework of a direct assistance program for the Palestinians. A total of 751 Palestinians have participated in the training programs offered by Japan since 1993.
