Japan-Norway Foreign Ministers' Telephone Talks

January 17, 2013
Japanese

On January 17 for about 10 minutes from 12:30 A.M., Mr. Fumio Kishida, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, had a telephone conversation with Mr. Espen Barth Eide, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway, concerning the hostage of Japanese nationals in Algeria. The overview of the meeting is as follows.

Minister Kishida stated that the Japanese Government is deeply concerned about information that many foreign nationals, including Japanese and Norwegian citizens, are being held as hostages at a natural gas plant in Algeria. He stressed that such an act was absolutely unforgivable.
In response, Minister Eide stated that he agreed with Minister Kishida, that strong requests for the securing of hostage safety would continue to be made to the Algerian Government, and that it was vital that the issue be dealt with through close collaboration among the home governments of each hostage.
Furthermore, Minister Kishida explained the telephone talks about this issue he had with H.E. Mr. Mourad Medelci, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria, prior to the conversation with Minister Eide. He said that there was a need for the international community to act as one and make a strong call for the release of the hostages, and that he hoped to closely collaborate with Norway. Minister Eide stated that Norway also offered support in order to resolve this issue, and that he wanted to closely collaborate with Japan.

(* The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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