Moscow And Tokyo Plan A Visit By Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi To Russia In 2002

Moscow and Tokyo plan to organise a visit to Russia in 2002 by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, who headed the Russian delegation to the consultations in Tokyo between the Foreign Ministries of the two countries, said this on Wednesday in an interview with RIA Novosti. He also said that it was planned that Chairman of the Russian Government Mikhail Kasyanov would visit Japan in the first half of next year. As preparations for the exchange of the visits by the heads of the governments of the two countries, the sides intend to carry out in the next few months reciprocal visits by Russian and Japanese Foreign Ministers. As has become known to the RIA Novosti correspondent from informed sources, the visit to Tokyo by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has been planned for the middle of December, this year. As Russian ambassador to Japan Alexander Panov said earlier in an interview with RIA Novosti, this visit will follow a session in Tokyo of the Russian-Japanese inter-governmental commission for trade and economic cooperation which is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko on the Russian side.