Pro-Russian Senator Muneo Suzuki did not inform the Japanese government about his meeting with the deputy head of Russian diplomacy. Tokyo strongly condemns the invasion of Ukraine and advises against travel to Russia.
A pro-Russian Japanese senator traveled to Moscow, a first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began last year, surprising the Japanese government, which on Tuesday, October 3, criticized this personal initiative.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Monday a face-to-face meeting between Russian deputy head of diplomacy Andrei Rudenko and Muneo Suzuki, senator from Japan’s Innovation Party, a populist opposition party.
“The government was not informed by Muneo Suzuki about his visit to Russia,” Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said during a regular news conference on Tuesday. Tokyo has strongly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the start and, like its Western allies, has imposed sanctions on Moscow.
Japan advises its citizens not to travel to Russia
Japan therefore advises all its citizens not to travel to Russia “for any reason,” reminded Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, indicating that this instruction also applies to parliamentarians.
“We are unable to comment on the reason for Senator Muneo Suzuki’s visit to Russia and the details of his agenda,” Yoko Kamikawa added.
The senator left for Moscow on Sunday “on an inspection trip,” his secretary Shinji Akamatsu said on Tuesday, specifying that he was making this trip “in the name of his own vision of the national interest.” But the move also embarrasses his own party, which has said it will summon Muneo Suzuki upon his return to explain himself.
In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized Muneo Suzuki’s “important contribution” to the development of Russian-Japanese relations, while regretting that this old bilateral cooperation is “being deliberately destroyed today” by sanctions against Russian states” and by “the anti-Russian orientation of the Russian Federation.” “collective West””.
Politicians with a sulphurous past
75-year-old Muneo Suzuki has long been considered an advocate for strengthening Russian-Japanese relations. He was also accused and convicted of corruption in the early 2000s, forcing him to leave the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, right-wing conservative), Japan’s main political party in power.
However, that sulphurous past didn’t stop him from becoming an informal diplomatic adviser to then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the 2010s, as he again tried to boost relations with Moscow.