Press Conference by Prime Minister ISHIBA Shigeru regarding the United States-Ukraine Summit Meeting and Other Matters

(On Prime Minister Ishiba's assessment of whether the meeting between United States President Trump and Ukraine President Zelenskyy resulted in a degree of progress towards a ceasefire; on whether the Government of Japan intends to be involved with security guarantees for Ukraine, in light of the comments made by NATO Secretary General Rutte to U.S. media that 30 countries including Japan are considering involvement in ensuring Ukraine's security; and, if so, what kind of involvement is being considered, such as financial assistance or monitoring of the ceasefire by the Self-Defense Forces)

It was on August 18 local time in the United States, which was the early hours of August 19 Japan time, that President Trump and President Zelenskyy held their meeting. After that, as the media has reported, talks were held involving the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the European Union, and NATO. I myself participated in the virtual meeting of the Coalition of the Willing (the Virtual Leaders Meeting of the Coalition of the Willing on Ukraine), and I gave my views regarding their meeting at that time. I also stated Japan's position on the matter.

As for the points you raised in your question, all this just occurred a few hours ago. The Government of Japan has a serious and significant interest in these matters. First, we consider it extremely meaningful for bringing peace to Ukraine that President Trump has been actively pursuing various endeavors. Moreover, Japan is extremely concerned that innocent people who have done nothing wrong are falling victim to this situation day in and day out. This applies to both Ukraine and Russia.

The important thing is to achieve an early ceasefire and a just peace. Attaining this just peace is an extremely challenging undertaking that will take some time to achieve. We must reduce and put an end to the slaughter of innocent civilians by achieving an early ceasefire. At the same time, we must bring about peace, a formidable challenge indeed. The question is how to pursue those two objectives and make them a reality. It is something easy to say but inordinately difficult to actually do.

As for the security guarantees that you asked about, discussions are underway at this very moment. Japan is keeping a keen eye on the progression of these discussions. We will carefully assess what our country can and should do, including various considerations regarding our domestic legal structure and what we have the capacity to do, and fulfill the role that Japan should take on. That said, at present, we are not in any way at the stage where we can state in concrete terms how we will proceed.

(On what Prime Minister Ishiba seeks to achieve as chair of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development [TICAD] meeting that will convene for three days from tomorrow in Yokohama; on how Japan will engage with Africa as China and other nations strengthen their influence in Africa)

TICAD 9, the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, will take up the theme of "Co-create Innovative Solutions with Africa." I want us to together discuss and identify solutions that benefit both Japan and Africa and lead to prosperity through the mobilization of Japan's technologies and expertise.

The composition of Africa's population is extremely young, and the portion of the global population that is African is rising extremely rapidly. Africa is exceptionally blessed with both human and material resources. The question is how we can best tie these in to Japan's growth as well as global prosperity, capitalizing on these resources.

This will require a strengthening of global governance. I believe we must make the cooperation we enjoy with Africa, whose presence on the world stage is growing, even more vigorous. As I said just now, we will provide assistance to support self-help efforts that make use of human resource development. We must also co-create social values, and economic growth must be high in quality.

We will continue to implement development assistance going forward, placing importance on the point that human security is also critical. We will continue to reliably ensure transparency and appropriateness in our development assistance and we will further improve upon these aspects. Rather than focusing on what issues or needs we on the Japanese side identify in Africa, we intend to fulfill Japan's role by earning trust through attentively coming to understand the needs that those on the African side point out.