Kishida weighs February Ukraine visit: Media

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering visiting Kyiv in February and holding talks with Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky, the Yomiuri newspaper said, citing Japanese government sources.

As chair of the Group of Seven (G7) leading economies this year, Japan wants to show it intends to keep providing support to Ukraine while it also aims to release a statement with Kyiv condemning Russia’s aggression, Yomiuri said.

Kishida will make a final decision about whether to go ahead with the visit based on the state of the war in Ukraine, Yomiuri said, citing multiple unnamed government sources.

Japan’s foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment on the report.

Speaking at a television programme on Sunday, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said the idea was something Japan must contemplate as chair of G7 this year.

“But nothing has been decided at this stage,” he said, when asked about the possibility of Kishida visiting Kyiv.

Earlier this month, the Japanese leader told Zelenskiy in a phone call that he would weigh an invitation to visit Kyiv depending on “various circumstances”.

Japan will host the annual G7 summit in May in Hiroshima, when Ukraine is expected to be a major topic of discussion. The other G7 countries are the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France and Italy.

Separately, a fire at an apartment building in Kobe in western Japan killed four men and let four in critical condition on Sunday, an official said.

The fire department was alerted to the blaze in the three-storey building by an emergency call at around 1:30am (1630 GMT Saturday). Four bodies were found ater it was extinguished.

Four other men, aged between their 40s and 70s, “were taken to hospital unconscious,” Masatoshi Sumitani at the Kobe fire department said.

Most of the occupants of the building were believed to be elderly men, Japanese media reports said, citing other residents of the building.

Black smoke could be seen coming out of a window on the first floor when the fire broke out, Kyodo News reported.

Police will begin investigating the cause of the fire later on Sunday, Sumitani said.

Kishida on Friday announced plans to downgrade the legal status of COVID-19 to the equivalent of seasonal influenza in the spring, a move that would further relax mask wearing and other preventive measures as the country seeks to return to normalcy.

Kishida said he has instructed experts and government officials to discuss the details on lowering COVID-19’S status.