The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad, Nabil Ammar, met today Friday, with the Japanese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fukazawa Yoichi, who leads his country’s delegation to the work of the AU conference.
Quoted in a press release from the Presidency of the Government, the two parties emphasized the need to ensure the follow-up of the results and recommendations resulting from the 8th session of the Tokyo International Conference on Development in Africa (TICAD 8), organized in Tunisia on August 27 and 28, 2022.
The objective is to further realize the desired expectations in terms of development and to boost the process of Japanese-African cooperation, adds the same source.
The meeting which took place as part of the participation of the head of Tunisian diplomacy in the 37th session of the UN conference and the 44th session of the Executive Council of the African Union, was the opportunity to strengthen long-standing Tunisian-Japanese relations and to reflect on ways to promote bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the two countries within the framework of a new approach based on mutual benefit and effective partnership in various areas of common interest, such as diplomatic training, renewable energy, automobile industry, modern technology, blue economy and water management.
Minister Ammar assessed the reform process initiated in Tunisia, stressing that it is in line with respect for the law, just as it reflects the will of the Tunisian people to put an end to external interference in the affairs of Tunisia, to corruption, chaos, nepotism and paralysis which has exhausted the institutions of the State.
In this context, the minister emphasized the need to respect the sovereignty of States and not to interfere in their internal affairs, recalling Tunisia’s attachment to the independence of its national decision-making and its attachment to international conventions and standards adopted for this purpose.
The two sides also discussed the massacres perpetrated daily by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people.
In this regard, the minister reaffirmed Tunisia’s firm position of principle on the Palestinian question, the mother of humanitarian questions, stressing in this regard that Tunisia, a land of several cultures and religions, categorically refuses to assimilate the aggressor and fat.
He stressed that the Palestinian people, who are currently suffering the crime of genocide, do not need help from anyone but rather “an immediate ceasefire and international condemnation of the crimes committed by the entity Zionist.”
In this context, the head of Tunisian diplomacy took the opportunity to express his strong indignation at the suspension by donor countries of their funding to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees in Palestine), reaffirming the need to put international pressure on in order to achieve a ceasefire and to remove obstacles linked to the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza to meet the enormous humanitarian needs and confront attempts at forced displacement.
For his part, the Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister said he understood the Tunisian positions, declaring himself willing to transmit them to the authorities of his country.
