Japanese foreign minister brings with him from Poland 20 Ukrainian evacuees
April 5, 2022, 7:01 am

Japanese foreign minister brings with him from Poland 20 Ukrainian evacuees

Japanese Foreign Minister brings in 20 Ukrainian refugees on special flight from Poland (File photo: Pixabay)

The Nikkei Asia news website reported, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi returned to Japan on Tuesday 05-04-2022 from Poland and brought with him 20 evacuees from Ukraine in a show of Tokyo's latest support for the war-torn nation and its neighboring countries.

According to Hayashi, who refrained from disclosing any further details, citing privacy concerns, the 20 evacuees who boarded a backup government plane in the Polish capital of Warsaw had been hoping to travel to Japan but had been unable to secure their own means of transportation.

According to Nikkei Asia, the exceptional move by Japan of using a government plane to airlift foreign evacuees comes as airfares have skyrocketed for Ukrainian people since Russia's invasion of their homeland began on Feb. 24.

It said, the government plans to provide support to the 20 evacuees for around six months, including housing, employment and language lessons, according to Senior Vice Justice Minister Jun Tsushima who accompanied Hayashi on his five-day trip to Poland.

A convoy of Ukrainian buses set out for the southern port city of Mariupol on Thursday 31-03-2022 to try to deliver humanitarian supplies and bring out trapped civilians (File photo: Euromaidan Press)

The minister's visit to Poland as a special envoy of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was aimed at showing Japan's commitment to the global efforts to help Ukraine and Poland, which has seen the largest refugee influx from Ukraine following the Russian attacks.

The report said that on Monday, Hayashi vowed to accept "as many (Ukrainians) as possible" from a humanitarian perspective when he held talks with his Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau in Warsaw, before meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

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To see what aid Tokyo should provide to Ukrainian evacuees, Hayashi also visited a border checkpoint and a refugee reception center in Medyka and Japan's temporary liaison office in Rzeszow, both in southeastern Poland, during his stay in the country.

In a related move, Japan has decided to dispatch four officials to Moldova, another nation sharing a border with Ukraine, for a week from Tuesday to explore the possibility of a human resource contribution in the health and medical services sector.

According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, as of Sunday, 4.21 million refugees had fled Ukraine since the start of the conflict, including 2.45 million to Poland and about 395,000 to Moldova.

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According to the Japanese government, since Moscow launched military attacks on Ukraine, Japan had accepted 404 evacuees from Ukraine as of Sunday.

Source: asia.nikkei

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Upon arriving to participate in the summit of the European Political Community, which includes around forty heads of state in Budapest, he said, "I look forward to sitting with the elected U.S. president and seeing how we will collectively ensure we meet challenges, including the threats from Russia and North Korea." He also noted that the strengthening of ties between Russia and North Korea poses a threat to the United States as well, according to reports from Agence France-Presse.

Before Trump's victory, Rutte expressed confidence that a united Washington would remain part of the defensive alliance, even if Trump became the 47th president of the United States. In an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF last Monday night, he stated that both Republicans and Democrats understand that NATO serves not only the security of Europe but also that of America. He added that both candidates are aware that the security of the United States is closely tied to NATO.

On Wednesday, NATO congratulated Trump on his victory but did not address the Ukrainian issue.

It is noteworthy that the relationship between the elected U.S. president and the defense alliance was not the best during his first term in the White House. Trump criticized NATO member states multiple times and even hinted at withdrawing from the alliance unless they increased their financial contributions.

Additionally, the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian war is one of the matters that complicate relations between the two sides, especially since Trump has repeatedly stated that he can end this ongoing conflict, which began in 2022, quickly. He implied that he had a peace plan between Kyiv and Moscow, while his vice president, JD Vance, revealed aspects of that plan, which stipulated Ukraine's commitment not to join NATO, thereby sending reassuring signals to the Russians.

Furthermore, many NATO member states in Europe fear that Trump might halt military aid to Ukraine after he previously criticized the U.S. for pouring funds into supporting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.