Tokyo, Oct. 6 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has given an explanation on X, formerly Twitter, about her absence from an online summit of the Group of Seven advanced countries held Friday night Japan time. The videoconference was “hurriedly arranged by France, this year’s G7 chair, that day, so deputies were allowed to take part in the talks on behalf of leaders,” she said in the X post Monday. The online summit was held for about 30 minutes from 9:30 p.m. Friday, with participants agreeing on a concerted release of oil reserves. From Japan, Kazuya Endo, senior deputy minister for foreign affairs, attended the meeting and read out Takaichi’s message on her behalf. The message said, among other things, that Japan, in light of the current situation in the Middle East, took the initiative in March to decide to release oil stockpiles to help stabilize global energy supplies, in particular for Asia, and that the country will continue to serve as a nexus of global supply chains and cooperate to strengthen economic and energy resilience in the world. In the X post, Takaichi said that a delay in Europe’s release of oil reserves amid the lingering turmoil in the Middle East was the main issue at the online G7 summit, apparently suggesting that it was not of much significance for Japan to attend the session. takaichi said she heard that British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, a key organ of the European Union, were also absent from the online summit. The G7 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States plus the EU. On Friday, Takaichi met with senior officials of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party over dinner at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo for about an hour from 6:30 p.m. Alcohol was served at the dinner meeting, and the prime minister drank some of it, according to participants. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
