Dr M to pay condolences to Abe’s widow in Tokyo

 

Dr Mahathir Mohamad during a meeting with Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Japan, in May 2019. (Bernama pic)

TOKYO: Dr Mahathir Mohamad will visit Japan today and pay his condolences to the widow of his former Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia.

The two-time former prime minister, who is in South Korea having attended a conference, will stop by Japan and meet Akie Abe in the afternoon.

Abe, who also twice served Japan as prime minister, was assassinated during an election rally in Nara on June 8 while giving a speech on behalf of a Liberal Democratic Party candidate for the upper house.

Mahathir and Abe had worked closely together. Abe was postwar Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, while Mahathir served as prime minister for a combined 24 years.

In March, Abe visited Malaysia as a special envoy and gave a speech to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the “Look East ” policy that Mahathir launched, modelled after one in Japan, in his first term as Malaysia’s prime minister, from 1981 to 2003. - FMT