Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi will make a two-day visit to Afghanistan next week as part of a four-nation tour which will also take her to Iran, Britain and Belgium, ministry officials said Wednesday.
In Kabul, where she is scheduled to arrive next Wednesday after stopping in London and Brussels, Kawaguchi is planning to meet Afghan interim authority leader Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah to discuss the progress of their nation-building efforts and Japan's commitment to help the country's reconstruction.
She is also hoping to hold talks with former Afghan King Zahir Shah, who arrived back in Afghanistan last week after 29 years in exile in Italy, as well as the interim administration's Finance Minister Hedayat Amin Arsala and Women's Affairs Minister Sima Samar, the officials said.
The Japanese foreign minister is expected to meet U.N. special envoy for Afghan affairs Lakhdar Brahimi, who brokered a peace deal among Afghan factions last December in Bonn to launch the political recovery process in the war-torn Central Asian country.
Kawaguchi is set to leave Japan on Sunday and arrive later that day in London.
(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2002)
