Japan plans to play a leading role in rebuilding strife-torn Sri Lanka. Peace talks are under way to end more than 20 years of ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese (Buddhist) majority and the Tamil (Hindu) minority. An international conference on Sri Lankan reconstruction and development is scheduled for June in Tokyo.
Japan's international diplomacy aims at the "consolidation of peace," as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi declared in a speech last May in Sydney. A Foreign Ministry source says Sri Lanka will be the first case in which official development assistance is used to bring about peace, not just promote development.
In the case of Afghanistan, for which Japan hosted an international donors meeting in Tokyo in January last year, reconstruction aid followed the ouster of the Taliban regime. In Sri Lanka, however, peace talks and recovery support will be intertwined.