Al-Assad confers with Japanese ME envoy
Syria-Japan, Politics, 11/29/2002

Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad on Thursday received the Japanese Senior Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Special Envoy of the Japanese Prime Minister, Toshimitu Motegi and the accompanying delegation.

During the meeting, which was attended by the Foreign Minister, Farouk Al-Shara and the Ambassador of Japan to the country, Motegi conveyed a message from the Japanese Prime Minister that stresses the importance of developing bilateral relations between Syria and Japan.

President Assad affirmed the necessity of developing the bilateral relations indicating the great approaches of stances of Syria and Japan as far as the long term most dangerous issue of the region, the Arab-Israeli conflict is concerned or the near term most dangerous issue of Iraq.

President Assad underlined that all Syria's stances and initiatives so far were based on the Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and the Madrid Conference terms of reference Ð which are based on the two mentioned resolutions- but "we were always faced by the Israeli anti-peace stances which clarified that all successive Israeli governments never wanted peace in spite of all the world states approval of the necessity of realizing peace based on the two resolutions 242, 338 except Israel."

The President affirmed that any talk regarding a Palestinian state is not enough, unless it is connected with its natural identity and refers to the reference upon which the state is to be established.

For his part, Toshimitsu expressed Japan's readiness to cooperate in the peace process and whatever it can in this regard.

Toshimitsu also underlined the important role played by Syria at the Security Council discussions on the Iraqi issue as well as hope that Syria will keep playing such role in order to avoid the region another war.

Toshimitsu expressed Japan's appreciation of Syria's constructive role on both regional and international levels adding that Japan is convinced that power cannot solve the peace problem of the Middle East except by the UN related resolutions and on top of them the two resolutions 242 and 338.

Later today, the Prime Minister, Mohammed Mustafa Miro received the Japanese envoy in the presence of the Ambassador of Japan to the country.

Talks during the meeting dealt with the standing relations of cooperation between Syria and Japan in different fields of economy, commerce, industry as well as in the field of exchanging scientific and technical expertise and ways of developing and enhancing them for the interest of both sides.

Previous Stories:
  Al-Assad: peace for us is a principle, rather a tactic   (6/12/2002)
  A message to President al-Assad from Japanese Prime minister   (8/6/2001)
  Japan's deputy foreign minister in Damascus   (8/4/2001)

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