The United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinkenwill visit Japan on Monday to offer condolences in person for the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Blinken, who is in Bangkok on Sunday, will “offer condolences to the Japanese people” in meetings with high-ranking officials, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
Japan’s longest-serving prime minister was shot dead during a campaign rally on Friday in the west of the Asian country, one of the safest in the world.
Abe built close ties with the United States, especially on defense, while trying to shake off some of the nation’s postwar pacifism.
“The alliance between Japan and the United States has been a cornerstone of our foreign policy for decades,” he said. Blinken on Saturday after talks with the Group of 20 in Bali.
“The first Minister abe really took that alliance to new heights. The friendship between the Japanese and American peoples is equally unbreakable,” he said.
“That is why we stand with the people of Japan, with the family of the prime minister, following a truly heinous act of violence.”
The American President, Joe BidenEarlier in the day, he went in person to the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Washington to sign a book of condolences.
