Tokyo, 5 April, /AJMEDIA/
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi pledged to “seamlessly and steadily” deliver assistance worth $7.6 billion to Ukraine in a meeting Tuesday with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
Meeting on the sidelines of NATO meetings in Brussels, Hayashi told Kuleba that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s recent visit to war-hit Ukraine demonstrated Japan’s “determination to maintain the open and free international order based on the rule of law,” according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
The $7.6 billion pledge includes offers made by Kishida on his March 21 visit to Kyiv of $470 million in grant aid for energy and other sectors and $30 million in contribution to a NATO fund for the supply of nonlethal equipment.
Kuleba said Kishida’s trip to Kyiv sent an important message to Ukraine as well as the international community, the Japanese ministry said.
The trip came ahead of a Group of Seven summit Kishida will host in May in Hiroshima. The Japanese leader has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to join the gathering online.
At the upcoming G7 summit, Kishida is expected to pitch his vision of a world without nuclear weapons amid fears that Russia could use one against Ukraine in the war that has lasted since February 2022.
During talks on Tuesday with Hayashi, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also praised Kishida for visiting Ukraine.
Hayashi and Stoltenberg agreed it is important for like-minded nations to continue imposing economic sanctions on Moscow while supporting Ukraine, according to the ministry.
At the outset of the meeting, which was open to the media, Stoltenberg said NATO is promoting cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners including South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, with concern growing over regional security.
Hayashi will be in the Belgian capital for two days after arriving Tuesday to attend sessions of a NATO foreign ministerial gathering.
He told Stoltenberg what happened in Ukraine could occur “anywhere in the world.”
On Tuesday, Hayashi also held bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Belgium, Turkey, Portugal and Poland.
During his talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Hayashi promised Japan will continue supporting the country in its recovery from the devastation caused by powerful earthquakes in February, the Japanese ministry said.
Hayashi said Japan will extend help in various fields such as infrastructure reconstruction.
