The Qatar-based satellite television station Al-Jazeera will open an office in Tokyo early next year as its second bureau in Asia after the first one in Beijing, an Al-Jazeera official said Tuesday.
The Tokyo bureau will be headed by Rezrazi El-Mostafa, a Japan expert who arranged Al-Jazeera's interview with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Dec. 25.
A Moroccan native and an expert on security issues in Asia, El-Mostafa, 39, joined Al-Jazeera as an adviser in 2001. He has lived in Japan for more than 10 years.
Al-Jazeera has secured an office in Tokyo and plans to have a staff of five. The bureau is expected to open for business in February.
El-Mostafa said he got the nod from the network in September for his proposal to open a bureau in Tokyo, noting that North Korea would become a major news story after news in Iraq subsides.
Al-Jazeera, founded in 1996 and funded primarily by the Qatar government, came into the international spotlight for its coverage of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the U.S.-led war on Iraq earlier this year.