Meeting between Mr. Masaji Matsuyama, Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, at the Donors' Conference for the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA)

January 29, 2013
Japanese

On January 29 from 6:15 P.M. (12:15 P.M. local time) for approximately 15 minutes, Mr. Masaji Matsuyama, Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is visiting Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to attend the Donors’ Conference for the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA), met with fellow meeting attendee H.E. Mr. Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, for a discussion centering on the situation in Mali. The overview of the meeting is as follows.

At the start of the meeting, Senior Vice-Minister Matsuyama offered his condolences for the French victim of the terrorism incident in Algeria, and said that he was truly, extremely pained by the loss of 10 Japanese citizens in the same incident. He also praised the close collaboration between Japan and France over the course of the incident.
Continuing on, Senior Vice-Minister Matsuyama communicated the following points in relation to the Sahel region and northern Mali in particular.
(1) Japan is considering a new contribution of approximately 120 million US dollars to support stability in Mali and the Sahel region.
(2) This contribution will support the enhancement of the good governance and security sectors, including through humanitarian support for Malian refugees and others in the region and through support for a PKO training center. It will also further strengthen the activities of AFISMA.
(3) I announced this information at the Donors’ Conference for AFISMA. Since you called Minister Kishida about this matter on January 24, I am informing you directly at this occasion.
In response, Minister Fabius highly appreciated the contribution of Japan, said that he thought Japan’s announcement of significant support would encourage the offering of support from other countries, and expressed deep gratitude. In addition, he stated that he wanted to continue to collaborate with Japan in the fight against terrorism.

(* 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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