Ehud Olmert will visit Japan next week.
The Israeli prime minister is scheduled to fly to Tokyo on Sunday for talks on bolstering bilateral trade
ties. He will be accompanied by many of the Jewish state’s business elite.
According to Israel’s daily Yediot Acharonot, Japanese leaders also will quiz Olmert on suspected North Korean involvement in the non-conventional weapons programs of Iran and Syria. Japan, like
the West, long has viewed Pyonyang as a destabilizing factor in Asia and beyond.
The last Israeli prime minister to visit Japan was Benjamin Netanyahu, in 1997.
