The government said Friday it will send a diplomat to a U.N. mission in Sudan next month to help the world body's peacekeeping operations in the African country, government officials said.
Yusuke Kudo, 32, of the Foreign Ministry's Second Middle East Division, will be the first Japanese civilian to participate in a U.N. peacekeeping operation in five years.
Kudo has worked at the Japanese Embassy there and speaks fluent Arabic, according to the government.
Kudo is expected to engage in information analysis to serve as a report writing officer under Jan Pronk, a special representative of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan who heads the U.N. Mission in the Sudan, for a year, the officials said.