Khaldon Azhari

TOKYO: Saudi Arabia deserves to hold a successful G20 Summit in November, as Japan did last year, said the foreign policy speechwriter to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“Tokyo has full empathy toward the Saudis” as the coronavirus pandemic “now makes it ever more difficult for the country to hold in-person meetings,” Tomohiko Taniguchi, a professor at Keio University, told Arab News Japan.

The summit, scheduled for Nov. 21-22, will be held virtually due to the pandemic.

“The occasion has been long-awaited … The narrative of metamorphosis should’ve been witnessed by visiting leaders from the G20 community,” he said.

As the unquestionable leader of the Arab world and top producer of fossil fuels, Riyadh sees the summit as an opportunity to tell other nations about how it has started adapting to a new, increasingly decarbonized world, the former spokesman for Japan’s Foreign Ministry added.

“Japan has been thus far, and will continue to be always, their friend,” he said.