Koizumi urges Sudanese foreign minister to settle Darfur crisis

TOKYO, Sep 08, 2004 (Kyodo) — Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday urged visiting Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail to boost efforts to resolve the conflict in the country’s Darfur region, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said.

Koizumi was quoted as telling Ismail that he understood the Sudanese government is working hard to settle the crisis that the United Nations describes the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Ismail told Koizumi the human rights situation in the African country has improved thanks to humanitarian aid by Japan, the officials said. Japan suspended economic assistance to Sudan since 1992 on the grounds of human rights violations by the military junta.

But Koizumi did not mention Wednesday whether his administration will consider resuming its foreign aid to Sudan, simply saying Japan shared concerns about the humanitarian situation in Sudan with the international community.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 1 million have been displaced since February 2003 in the Darfur region of Sudan when African rebels rose against the Sudanese government, which they say is persecuting them. Arab militias also started assaulting Africans indiscriminately.

Earlier Wednesday, visiting U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers met Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and voiced hopes for Japan’s involvement in a fact-finding team on the Darfur conflict he plans to dispatch possibly later this month.

Kawaguchi conveyed to him a plan to let senior diplomat Keitaro Sato join the envisaged UNHCR-led mission so that Japan can figure out what it can do to deal with the conflict. Sato serves as ambassador in charge of conflict and refugee-related issues in Africa.

Lubbers told a press conference the same day the envisaged fact-finding mission will consist of officials from the U.S. State Department, the European Union and the African Union.