JCP Ogata meets with Pakistani ambassador

Japanese Communist Party International Bureau Director Ogata Yasuo, House of Councilors member, on July 22 met with Kamran Niaz, ambassador of Pakistan to Japan, in Tokyo.

Niaz was an additional secretary of Foreign Affairs when he had a meeting with a JCP delegation headed by JCP Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo in Islamabad, Pakistan in December 2002.

Ogata and Niaz discussed several issues of common interest, including Pakistan's first participation in the ASEAN Regional Forum on July 2 and the Pakistan-India foreign ministerial meeting on July 21 in Islamabad.

Ogata spoke about the 2004 World Conference against A and H Bombs to be held next month in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan's anti-nuclear grassroots movements, emphasizing that the abolition of nuclear weapons is the only way to eliminate threats of nuclear war. He expressed hope that Pakistan as well as India will take steps toward nuclear weapons abolition.

Ogata and Niaz also exchanged views on the six-party talk on North Korea, Middle East peace efforts, and the question of "terrorism". (end)