At the preparatory meeting for the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD-9) that is being held in Yokohama, Japan reiterated that it does not recognize the Polisario Front separatist movement.
The head of the Japanese delegation opened the session by saying that the presence of the group at TICAD events does not alter Japan’s “consistent position” that it does not recognize the Polisario.
More starkly, he added that Japan had not invited the group. Only countries with which Tokyo maintains diplomatic relations were formally invited, he asserted. Instead, according to the head Japanese delegate, the African Union, a co-organizer of TICAD, had been responsible for sending invitations to its members.
The statement comes just days after Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya reaffirmed in an interview with PanOrient News that Japan does not and apparently will not recognize the self-proclaimed “SADR.” “There is no change in our policy of not inviting it to TICAD,” Iwaya said emphatically.
Reiterating its position both through its foreign minister and its delegation at TICAD aligns the country with international law and the member-states of the United Nations, the overwhelming majority of which do not recognize the Polisario’s self-proclaimed “republic.”
AloJapan.com