Foreign Minister Taro Kono on Saturday asked his Qatari counterpart for the Middle Eastern country to stop accepting North Korean laborers, in line with a proposed U.N. sanctions resolution calling for a ban on accepting such workers, a Japanese official said.
Regarding Qatar's diplomatic rift with Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments, which announced in June they were cutting off diplomatic relations with Doha, Kono offered Japan's help to mediate between the two sides, the official said.
During the first leg of his six-day trip to the Middle East, Kono urged Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani for cooperation in tackling North Korea, which conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date last weekend.