Press Conferences

NHK, Watanabe: On Japan-Russia relations, some reports say that two Russian Deputy Prime Ministers will visit Etorofu Island in the Northern Territories soon. Some view that they will visit locations, such as hospital and seafood processing factory, which were visited by the Prime Minister of Russia in July, and that this will advance the concept of special zone which has been mentioned by the Russian side. Please share with us Japan’s information gathering as of now and Japan’s position regarding the visit.

Mr. YOSHIDA Tomoyuki, Press Secretary: I imagine that what you have just asked about is regarding the announcement made by the Russian Prime Minister’s Office on October 12. The Russian Prime Minister’s Office website states that Deputy Prime Minister Grigorenko and Deputy Prime Minister Khusnullin will pay a working visit to the far east in order to observe to what extent the points raised by Prime Minister Mishustin are met. I am aware that the announcement also mentions seafood processing facility and other locations on Etorofu Island as the specific locations they will visit.

In response to this announcement, the Government of Japan has lodged a protest to the Russian side that visits to Etorofu Island by Russian dignitaries are incompatible with Japan’s position on the attributions issue.

The Government of Japan’s view at this point is to request an appropriate response because if the visit is made, it will be unacceptable in light of the Government of Japan’s position.

NHK, Watanabe: Some reports suggest that people who evacuated from Afghanistan with the support of the Government of Japan will be arriving. As Foreign Minister Motegi stated in his press conference yesterday, I imagine that they are the ones who had not been able to evacuate using Self-Defense Forces (SDF) aircraft back then. After the SDF aircraft operations, what kind of diplomatic communication did you have with relevant countries and what proved to be effective? In addition, please tell us again what the policy is regarding the Government of Japan’s response.

Press Secretary Yoshida: Yesterday, Foreign Minister Motegi explained that in addition to the 53 people who had arrived in Japan on October 8, 50 people, including local staff members of the Embassy of Japan and JICA office in Afghanistan, are scheduled to arrive in Japan today. Furthermore, almost 90 people have already arrived in Qatar and are waiting to depart for Japan.

The series of people entering Japan began with their departure from Afghanistan to Qatar in early October using civilian aircraft arranged by the Government of Qatar at the request of the Government of Japan. After that, based on the wishes of each people, the Government of Japan has provided support such as an issuance of visas and arrangement of plane tickets for those who wished to enter Japan.

Since the worsening of the situation in Afghanistan, the number of people who departed for Japan has reached 168, including the 50 people who have arrived today. I believe that people who have entered Japan this week are the first case of people who left Afghanistan using civilian aircraft as means of transportation, which are safer and more reliable.

The Government of Qatar has established very close relations with the Taliban even before recent developments. We have cooperated closely with the Government of Qatar and requested various forms of support. We have also diligently negotiated with and urged the Taliban to allow the departure of Afghani people, including this time. We have confirmed that the Taliban will not prevent a departure by Afghani people who have proper travel documents. As you have pointed out, these people are included among those we had in mind for transportation via SDF aircraft at the end of August.

Looking ahead, we first plan to continue coordination so that roughly 90 people who have already departed to Qatar using civilian aircraft arranged by the Government of Qatar could enter into Japan as soon as the situation settles.

Furthermore, among the people who had been considered eligible for support for departure using SDF aircraft at the outset, there are people who have already left Afghanistan using other means, as well as people who no longer wish to leave Afghanistan. At the same time, I believe there are still over 200 local staff of the embassy and JICA as well as others who wish to leave Afghanistan.

There is no change whatsoever to the Government of Japan’s plan to exert all efforts to ensure the safety of and provide necessary support for evacuation by the small number of Japanese nationals still in Afghanistan, the local staff members, and others. In that process, we will closely cooperate with relevant countries including Qatar and the United States, as well as neighboring countries where some people have departed to using land routes, although the Government of Japan does not recommend such means. We will respond as we prepare systems necessary to provide support at our diplomatic missions in these countries.

Our policy will continue to be to seek the safest and most prompt means of departure from Afghanistan through diplomatic efforts including negotiations with the Taliban.

NHK, Watanabe: In relation to that, in that case, will Japan end its operations once the departure from Afghanistan by the people who had expressed their wish to evacuate at the time of the initial operations via SDF aircraft is complete? There are also people who did not express their wish to leave at the time. In that sense, there could be more people coming forward. To what extent will Japan expand the scope of support? Or is Japan telling people who wish to escape to move to somewhere else? Please tell us about the current situation. To what extent do the operations have to continue before they are considered to be over? It might be too early to say, but what is the current outlook on the situation?

Press Secretary Yoshida: The basic way of thinking is that the people eligible for an initial support to leave Afghanistan via SDF aircraft would be the local staff members and others who worked hard together as colleagues of Japanese nationals. These people had been in employment relations with the embassy and JICA. We believe that it is natural to provide as much support to these people as possible based on their wishes, and thus we have been earnestly conducting efforts for their departure.

At the same time, in terms of their acceptance, they all have different personal circumstances. We intend to carefully confirm their will and respond with extra care.

As I have stated earlier, among those who had initially been eligible for evacuation support, there are people who no longer wish to leave Afghanistan. Despite such situation, there are still over 200 people who wish to leave Afghanistan, so there is still much to do.

As I have mentioned in the beginning, apart from those who have left using civilian aircraft this week through support from the Government of Qatar, there are issues that should be considered regarding different circumstances. Although our current operations are going well, we are unsure if the same thing could be done for the people still left in Afghanistan until we actually try.

Therefore, the Government of Japan will exert all efforts to overcome the challenge in front of us. Our current recognition is that we must continue to make a lot of efforts. So considering our operations at this point, we believe that we are not necessarily in the stage to turn our attention to discussing what to do for other cases and what we should in terms of the scope, which you have asked about.