Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on December 25 laid a wreath at the Israeli memorial to the victims of the Holocaust "Yad Vashem" and called for strengthening ties between the two countries. He wrote in the guest book of the memorial that he prayed "with all my heart that such a tragedy never happened again."
At a joint press conference with President Reuven Rivlin, he said that Japan "views Israel as a country full of talent not only in technology, but also in the fields of humanism, art and science." "I hope to increase the exchange of people between the two countries," he added.
Rivlin said that he was "very concerned" with North Korea and that "a crisis on one side of the globe can affect the other side of the globe." A spokesman for Rivlin's office said that Kono expressed the hope of establishing a direct air service between Israel and Japan "in the near future."