Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa will travel to the United States next month to meet with her counterpart and affirm bilateral cooperation, the government said Thursday.
The trip, which comes as Japan prepares for a state visit by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the invitation of the White House, starts on Jan. 5 and will also take Kamikawa to Canada and five European nations: Poland, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
Through the visits, Japan will seek to promote cooperation with each country to "maintain and strengthen a free and open global order based on the rule of law," the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.
In the United States, Kamikawa, who became foreign minister in September, will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials, the ministry said.
Topics of discussion are likely to include Kishida's expected visit to the United States, which could take place in early March, according to sources familiar with the bilateral relationship.
U.S. President Joe Biden invited Kishida to the United States as a state guest in early 2024 when they met in November in San Francisco on the sidelines of an annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit.
If realized, Kishida would become the first Japanese leader to be treated as a state guest in the United States since a visit by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2015.