2023-10-03 05:34:25
Pro-Russian senator Muneo Suzuki did not inform the Japanese government of his meeting with the deputy head of Russian diplomacy. Tokyo strongly condemns the invasion of Ukraine and advises once morest travel to Russia.
A pro-Russian Japanese senator went to Moscow, a first since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year and which took the Japanese government by surprise, which on Tuesday October 3 criticized this personal initiative.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reported a face-to-face meeting on Monday between deputy head of Russian diplomacy Andrei Rudenko and Muneo Suzuki, senator from the Japanese Innovation Party, a populist opposition party. .
«The government was not informed by Muneo Suzuki of his visit to Russia» Japanese government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno said Tuesday during a regular press briefing. Tokyo has strongly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the start and has adopted sanctions once morest Moscow like its Western allies.
Japan advises its citizens once morest traveling to Russia
Japan therefore advises all its citizens once morest traveling to Russia.whatever the reason», recalled Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, suggesting that this instruction also applied to parliamentarians.
«We are unable to comment on the reason for Senator Muneo Suzuki’s visit to Russia and the details of his agenda,” added Yoko Kamikawa.
The senator left for Moscow on Sunday.for an inspection trip“, declared his secretary Shinji Akamatsu on Tuesday, specifying that he was making this trip “in the name of its own vision of the national interest“. But the move also embarrasses his own party, which has said it plans to summon Muneo Suzuki upon his return to explain himself.
In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed “the important contribution» by Muneo Suzuki to the development of Russian-Japanese relations, while regretting that this old bilateral cooperation is “now deliberately destroyed» by the sanctions once morest Russia adopted by Japan «to please the United States» and by “the anti-Russian orientation of the “collective West”».
Politician with a sulphurous past
Aged 75, Muneo Suzuki has long been known as an advocate of strengthening Russian-Japanese relations. He was also accused and convicted of corruption in the early 2000s, which forced him to leave the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, conservative right), the main Japanese political party in power.
But this sulphurous past did not prevent him in the 2010s from becoming an informal diplomatic advisor to the then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when the latter once once more sought to warm up ties with Moscow.
1696316390
#Japanese #senator #visiting #Russia #embarrasses #party #government
