Tokyo, Japan, Prime Minister Rama meets with Prime Minister of Japan Sanae Takaichi

Prime Minister Rama, who is on an official visit to Japan, was welcomed today in a special ceremony with a Guard of Honour by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

At the start of the meeting, Prime Minister Rama expressed his gratitude for the unforgettable hospitality extended to him, while underlining that the Albania Japan relationship is based on shared values and principles for the world in which the two countries wish to live.

For her part, Prime Minister of Japan Sanae Takaichi expressed her pleasure at Prime Minister Rama’s visit to Japan, highlighting Japan’s commitment to strengthening relations between the two countries and expanding economic, cultural and diplomatic cooperation.

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Prime Minister of Japan Sanae Takaichi: I warmly welcome Prime Minister Rama’s visit today, his first. I am very pleased to meet you for the first time.

Albania is an important partner with which we share values and principles. We are pleased that Albania’s EU accession negotiations are making steady progress.

Japan will continue to strongly support Albania’s EU accession under the Western Balkans Cooperation Initiative, proposed by former Prime Minister.

I express my respect for Albania’s active contribution to regional stability in the Western Balkans, a region with a complex history.

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude for Albania’s support for Japan’s vision of a Free and open Indo-Pacific.

This month marks ten years since this vision was first proposed, and we have announced an updated vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific. This updated vision builds on the previous one, placing autonomy and resilience as two key elements, with the aim of making the entire region stronger and more prosperous together.

As the security of Europe, the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific becomes increasingly interconnected, we wish to further deepen our cooperation with Albania.

Thank you.

 

 

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Prime Minister, first, let me thank you very much for this very memorable hospitality and I must say I’ve had the chance to witness several ceremonies, but this one is special.

On the other hand, I want to say that it’s my second visit to Japan in a relatively short time and we are very much looking forward to strengthening this relation, which for us is very much a relation based on values and on shared principles about the world we want to live in. And yes, it’s true that I find the updated Free Indo-Pacific Strategy the right one at the right time and we fully support it, as we fully support the whole content of it.

We are very much looking forward to exploring the opportunities to get closer with Japan.

On the other hand, I want to say to you beforehand that next year we will organize the NATO Summit in Tirana and I would be more than happy to invite you to come. So, on this occasion, it would be the first ever visit of a Japanese Prime Minister to Albania in our history and it would really be an honor for us to host you and to somehow ‘revenge’ this hospitality of yours, which is very, very impressive.

So again, Prime Minister, thank you very much and I’m looking forward to this conversation and to more to come.

Let me also, before I end this introduction, congratulate you on your amazing victory and let me also tell you it’s very impressive to see a woman Prime Minister with all men under her orders. It’s quite impressive.

You are the second after Margaret Thatcher doing this and I wish you all the success for Japan, for your beautiful nation and your great people.