Japan

TOKYO, September 26. /TASS/: Japan and Russia were closest to signing a peace treaty in 2018, during a meeting between then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former head of the Japanese government said in an interview with Japan’s Nikkei business newspaper.

Speaking about the reasons that prevented the peace treaty from being signed, Abe mentioned "escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow" following the events in Ukraine in 2014.

TOKYO, September 25. /TASS/: The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the confrontation between the United States and China, and Russia should diplomatically prevent the development of this conflict, former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said in an article published by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Friday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Friday that China’s participation in a debt relief initiative dubbed “DSSI” was insufficient and that the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies must put more pressure on Beijing to abide by it.

Speaking to reporters after a G7 teleconference, Aso voiced the need to extend the debt relief programme for poor developing countries beyond its current year-end deadline.

Aso said the G7 finance chiefs also discussed responses to the coronavirus pandemic during the teleconference.

TOKYO, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Japan's new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga spoke with South Korean President Moon Jae-in via phone on Thursday, which was their first conversation since Suga took office last week.

In the talks that lasted about 20 minutes, Suga urged Moon to create an opportunity for the two countries to "return to a constructive relationship," according to a Japanese official who briefed reporters.

The official added that the two leaders agreed to work toward allowing business people to travel between the two countries amid COVID-19 restrictions.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the importance of their countries’ alliance in phone talks on Sunday, their first since Suga took over as Japan’s new leader.

Suga said Trump told him they should further develop the Japan-U.S. alliance together, while Suga told Trump the alliance was the foundation of regional peace and stability.

Suga, speaking to reporters, also said they agreed to coordinate closely on issues including the coronavirus situation and North Korea.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Saturday, his first visit since December 2013, after refraining from doing so for most of his term to avoid angering China and South Korea.

Abe announced the visit on his official Twitter account along with a photo of himself at the shrine, just days after Yoshihide Suga succeeded him as Japan’s leader. Japan’s longest-serving leader announced his resignation in late August, citing health problems.

TOKYO, Sept 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Japan said it will send a five-person team to Mauritius to investigate the grounding of a Japanese-owned ship off the country’s coast that led to an environmental crisis.

A bulk carrier owned by Japan’s Nagashiki Shipping and chartered by Mitsui OSK ran aground on a reef off Mauritius on July 25 and later began leaking oil into the pristine waters around the Indian Ocean island.

The Japanese government said in a statement that it would send a team of five people to Mauritius on Sept 20.

TOKYO, Sept 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — New Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government was backed by at least two-thirds of respondents in domestic polls taken in the early days of his administration.

The Kyodo news agency said its telephone poll showed 66.4 per cent of the public supported Suga’s cabinet.

A separate survey by the Nikkei newspaper and TV Tokyo showed 74 per cent support, the third-highest for an incoming Cabinet in the poll’s history, with positive replies noting Suga’s “trustworthy” personality.

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan will monitor not just inflation trends but job growth in guiding policy, its governor Haruhiko Kuroda said, signalling the BOJ’s readiness to ramp up stimulus if job losses from the coronavirus crisis heighten the risk of deflation.

With the immediate hit from the pandemic easing, the central bank kept monetary policy steady earlier on Thursday and upgraded its view on the economy to say it was starting to pick up.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Parliament elected Yoshihide Suga as prime minister Wednesday, replacing long-serving leader Shinzo Abe with his right-hand man.

Suga had been chosen as leader of the ruling party on Monday, virtually assuring he would succeed Abe, who resigned earlier in the day because of ill health. Suga, who was chief Cabinet secretary in Abe’s government, is to launch his own Cabinet later Wednesday.

Suga has stressed his background as a farmer’s son and a self-made politician in promising to serve the interests of ordinary people and rural communities.