Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Japan Invites Netanyahu To Four-Way Peace Summit In Tokyo

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Japan has invited Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a four-way meeting in Tokyo with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Jared Kushner in an effort to restart peace efforts.

The invitation was extended on Monday by visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, the Hebrew-language news website Walla reported Tuesday afternoon, citing diplomatic sources involved in the matter.

Netanyahu reportedly has conditioned his participation on approval from the Trump administration.

The initiative by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe comes as Tokyo completes a decade of involvement in the “Peace Corridor” project, an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian-Japanese venture in the Jordan Valley launched in Tokyo in 2007, Walla reported.

According to the news website, Japan is one of the largest contributors to the Palestinian Authority, and in the past decade it has increased its economic involvement in Israel and has called for a peace agreement on the basis of economic interests.

Kono arrived in Israel on Monday and will continue on to Jordan, Turkey and Oman. He met in Jerusalem with Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, and Minister of Regional Development Tzachi Hanegbi, and in Ramallah with Abbas.

The Palestinians have said they will not work with the United States on peace efforts since President Donald Trump earlier this month recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying the U.S. is not an honest broker.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.