Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail will arrive in Japan on Sept. 5 for a five-day visit to discuss the conflict in the African nation's Darfur region, the government said Friday.
Ismail is expected to huddle with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi over what the United Nations is calling the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Japan has suspended economic assistance to Sudan since 1992 because of human rights violations by the military junta and still does not believe the circumstances warrant a resumption of such assistance, Foreign Ministry sources said.
But Japanese officials are willing to consider emergency or other humanitarian assistance if the Sudanese government makes progress in resolving the conflict, including disarming the militias, the sources said.
There has long been tension in Darfur between Arabs and black Africans.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 1 million have been displaced since February 2003, when African rebels rose against the government, which they say is persecuting them. Arab militias also started attacking Africans indiscriminately.