Japan and Saudi Arabia are geographically far away from each other but very similar and close at heart.

They enjoy good political relations and try together to contribute toward the peace and stability of the region.

The two countries have traditionally enjoyed deep friendship in various fields.

It is also worth highlighting the important bilateral events, such as the meeting between our Prime Minister Sinzo Abe and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman on the sidelines of the recent G-20 summit and the recent talks in New York between Foreign Ministers Fumio Kishida and Adel Al-Jubeir.

These meetings contributed to enhancing bilateral relationship, including in political fields.

This year (2015) marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between the two friendly countries.

Both sides have already held a lot of commemorative events such as the Saudi-Japan Forum to mark the 60-year anniversary, which was organized by Saudi side in Tokyo in May.

The embassy of Japan has also carried out many commemorative events and the latest and the largest one was Budo (Japanese martial arts) performance by Nippon Budokan at several places of Riyadh recently.

Japan has also played a politically responsible role in its own way, and Japan becomes a non-permanent member of the Security Council from 2016. It aims to play a more positive role through cooperation with the international community, especially Saudi Arabia — a stabilizing and moderate power in the Middle East.

There should be ample room for Japan and Saudi Arabia to cooperate more in various fields.

In that respect, the monumental visit to Japan in February last year of King Salman (crown prince at that time) and the joint statement which was issued after the meeting of Prime Minister Abe and King Salman gives another impetus for our political initiative.

We will follow up the result of the joint statement and it will be another driving force to enhance bilateral relationship.