On May 27, DPJ Administration Committee Chair Tenzo Okumura (Vice Chair of the DPJ’s Japan-African Union Parliamentary Friendship League) received a courtesy call from Ethiopian Member of Parliament Ato Sebhat Nega Medhanye (Executive Director of Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development). The meeting was also attended by the Ethiopian Ambassador to Japan, Abdirashid Dulane.
At the start of the meeting, Okumura welcomed the Ethiopian side, and mentioning that Ethiopian runners Bikira Abebe (in the 1960s) and this year Yemene Tsegay had won the Lake Biwa Marathon, explained that people in his local district in Shiga felt an affinity with Ethiopia.
Sebhat explained that the 4th national election had taken place in Ethiopia on May 23, and said that the country was proceeding with democratization as a new Ethiopia. He expressed the hope that an Ethiopia-Japan Parliamentary League could be established as soon as possible, in order to contribute to the future development of Africa and Ethiopia in particular.
Okumura said that he would like to deepen mutual understanding from the perspectives of politics, economics, history, culture and so on, and to create a friendly bilateral relationship while developing active exchanges between politicians, and the meeting ended in a congenial atmosphere.
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