TOKYO, January 19. /TASS/. Japanese parliament member Muneo Suzuki, who represents the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has told TASS that he conveyed Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s view of relations with Moscow to Russian officials during his visit to the Russian capital.
Suzuki met with the Japanese premier ahead of his visit to Russia in December last year.
"I asked Prime Minister Takaichi for her opinion regarding relations with Russia and also consulted her on what to say in meetings with Russian officials. I conveyed it all to Federation Council [upper house of parliament] Chairman Konstantin Kosachev, Deputy Foreign Minister [Andrey] Rudenko, and Deputy Foreign Minister [Mikhail] Galuzin," the lawmaker said, when asked if he had delivered a message from Takaichi during his visit to Moscow.
Earlier, Japanese political scientist and former analyst at the Foreign Ministry Masaru Sato, who is a close ally of Suzuki, wrote in an op-ed for Toyo Keizai that Takaichi had passed a verbal message to Russian President Vladimir Putin through the lawmaker, saying that Tokyo believed relations with Russia were important and was looking forward to an early ceasefire in Ukraine.
When speaking about his meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Suzuki noted that she hoped peace would soon be achieved in Ukraine and was also confident that Japan "should play a role" afterwards.