NAYPYITAW — Myanmar’s top leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a visiting special adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the capital Naypyitaw on Tuesday.   Suu Kyi received Hiroto Izumi at the Foreign Ministry and exchanged views with him on bilateral cooperation, including future Japanese support for development projects in Myanmar, the ministry said in a statement.….Read more

Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Mitsuhiro Miyakoshi will visit Singapore on Oct. 25-28. Arrangements are being made for him to meet with cabinet ministers there. As an official in charge of promoting Japan’s exports of farm produce, he will hold talks on the import restrictions that the city-state imposes on meat.

Asahi wrote that despite Japan’s repeated calls for concluding a bilateral acquisition and cross-servicing agreement (ACSA), South Korea remains reluctant. The paper claimed that the ROK side did not offer any response to a comment made by Vice Foreign Minister Sugiyama on Tokyo’s willingness to seal such a pact during the trilateral vice foreign ministerial talks with the U.S. held….Read more

Asahi projected that Philippine President Duterte will visit Japan next week probably beginning on Sunday for talks with Prime Minister Abe. The paper explained that Manila will host the ASEAN Plus summit in mid-November and the GOJ is hoping to enhance bilateral coordination with the Philippines on such issues as North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and China’s maritime advancement….Read more

Sunday’s Yomiuri took up press remarks made on Saturday by a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official in charge of foreign affairs, who stressed the need to improve ties between Beijing and Tokyo by saying: “The two nations face new opportunities, but challenges remain. We should both take advantage of the opportunities and remove the challenges.”

Several Sunday papers reported from Moscow that visiting MOFA Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Director General Kanasugi disclosed on Saturday that he conveyed a message to a senior DPRK diplomat charged with North American affairs at an international conference held in the Russian capital on the same day. Yomiuri speculated that the message included Japan’s opposition to Pyongyang’s nuclear and….Read more

NHK reported this afternoon that Foreign Minister Kono told reporters today that MOFA has lodged a protest with South Korea over a plan presented by the South Korean military to create a new unit in charge of the Liancourt Rocks (Takeshima/Dokdo), saying that it runs counter to the development of a future-oriented relationship amid increasing tension over North Korea. Kono….Read more