US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln at the G20 meeting [자료사진: 연합뉴스 제공]
US Secretary of State Tony Blincoln plans to visit Japan tomorrow to pay tribute to the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
State Department spokeswoman Ned Price said in a statement released on the 9th local time that “Secretary Blincoln will visit Japan to pay condolences to the Japanese people over the death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and meet with high-ranking Japanese officials.”
“The US-Japan alliance is a cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” Price said. “It has never been stronger than this.”
After attending the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting of 20 major countries in Bali, Indonesia on the 7th and 8th, Secretary Blincoln was scheduled to return to Thailand after visiting Thailand tomorrow, but it is known that the schedule has been changed due to the death of former Prime Minister Abe.
Earlier, on the day of the incident, US President Joe Biden visited the Japanese Embassy in Washington DC, where the burial place of former Prime Minister Abe was prepared, on the 8th, and paid condolences, and the next day, he called Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to deliver his condolences.
“On behalf of the Biden family and all Americans, I express my sincere condolences to the family of former Prime Minister Abe and the Japanese people,” Biden wrote in the condolence note.
President Biden has directed U.S. government agencies to fly the flag separately from the condolences, and the flagging period is until sunset on the 10th.