Ukraine Mine Meeting Showed Japan’s Commitment: UNDP Official

Tokyo, Oct. 24 (Jiji Press)–Japan showed its “long-term commitment” to mine clearance in Ukraine in a two-day international conference held in Tokyo until Thursday, a senior official of the U.N. Development Program said. The conference “underscored Japan’s and UNDP’s long-term commitment…to enabling Ukraine’s safe, inclusive, and sustainable recovery,” Ivana Zivkovic, director of the UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, said in a written interview with Jiji Press. Zivkovic, who visited Japan to attend the meeting, said that participants “reaffirmed global solidarity under the shared vision: ‘Acceleration toward Reconstruction.'” Expressing gratitude for Japan’s contributions to Ukraine’s mine-related efforts and hosting of the conference, Zivkovic said that the Asian nation has been “one of the key partners” in the UNDP’s mine action efforts in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. “With a total contribution of 14.9 million dollars to date, Japan’s assistance has focused on strengthening national and local mine action capacities,” such as providing specialized equipment, including bomb suits and spare parts of demining equipment, to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, she said. With Russia continuing its military aggression, it is impossible to enter Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine to conduct humanitarian mine action or carry out such operations within 50 kilometers of the front line, Zivkovic said. Noting that massive amounts of ammunition are used every day along the 1,000-kilometer front line, she warned of rising contamination levels on the battleground on a daily basis. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]