• Japanese Foreign Minister will also travel to the United States, Senegal, Saudi Arabia and France

Arab News Japan

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya will be making a 10-day overseas trip which will include attending the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday (June 26).

According to a statement from the Foreign Ministry, Iwaya will also visit the United States, Senegal, Saudi Arabia and France.

“Amid deepening divisions within the international community, maintaining and strengthening a free and open international order based on the rule of law has become more important than ever,” Iwaya told reporters Friday.

In the United States, he is set to deliver a speech at the third Preparatory Committee session for the 2026 Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which will begin on Monday in New York.

Iwaya will be the third Japanese foreign minister to attend a preparatory committee meeting and the first since Taro Kono in April 2018.

As the only country that suffered atomic bombings, during World War II, Japan considers the NPT framework, which includes both nuclear and nonnuclear states, to be very important.

In his speech, Iwaya plans to urge the international community to aim for nuclear abolition and disarmament.

During his trip, Iwaya plans to meet with the foreign ministers of Senegal, Saudi Arabia and France.

He hopes to affirm cooperation with his Senegalese counterpart over the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD 9, to be held in Yokohama, near Tokyo, in August.

With Saudi Arabia, Iwaya is expected to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

In his meeting with his French counterpart, Iwaya plans to exchange views on the tariff policy of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and the situation in Ukraine.