Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan on September 27, 2022 to attend the State Funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
During his stay there, the Prime Minister will also separately meet his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida, an MEA release said.
Late Shinzo Abe served as the Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history.
Both Shinzo Abe and PM Modi had developed good personal rapport and both the leaders took pioneering steps to boost bilateral relations between two countries.
Shinzo Abe had visited Ahmedabad in 2017 and along with the Prime Minister Modi launched the beginning of much ambitious Bullet Train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.
In 2007, he initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue during his first tenure as prime minister, aimed at resisting China’s rise as a superpower.
On 8th July 2022, Abe was assassinated while delivering a campaign speech in Nara two days before the 10th July upper house elections. The suspect, who was arrested at the scene, confessed to targeting the former prime minister because of Abe’s ties with the Unification Church.
Abe’s assassination was the first assassination of a former Japanese prime minister since 1936.
