Japan’s PM to leave for US on Mon. for address to UN assembly

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will leave for New York on Monday to deliver an address at the ongoing U.N. General Assembly session, the top government spokesman said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference Friday that Kishida also plans to hold bilateral meetings with other leaders during his planned stay in New York, without providing details.

Kishida will “aggressively deliver Japan’s message about the global challenges that the international community has been facing,” such as U.N. Security Council reform, and nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, Matsuno said.

To build momentum toward the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Kishida, who represents a constituency in the city of Hiroshima that was devastated by an atomic bomb in World War II, is slated to attend a leaders-level meeting of the Friends of the CTBT, according to Matsuno.

Also on Friday, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told a separate news conference that he will make a six-day trip to New York from Monday to attend the annual U.N. session that started Tuesday.

Hayashi said he plans to attend a foreign ministerial meeting with Brazil, Germany and India on the sidelines of the U.N. assembly to discuss U.N. Security Council reform. Japan and the three countries are keen to become permanent members of the world body’s decision-making organ.

Hayashi also said he will meet with his counterparts from the Group of Seven nations and Partners in the Blue Pacific, a five-member U.S.-led framework launched in June apparently aimed at countering China’s attempts to boost economic and military cooperation with Pacific island countries.