Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, assigned Secretary General of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Ahmed Ragheb, to conduct a mission in Afghanistan, Japan, and South Korea. Ambassador Ragheb will deliver written messages from the Egyptian Foreign Minister to his counterparts in those countries, related to bilateral relations as well as regional and international issues of common interest between Egypt and these countries. During his visit to Japan, Ambassador Ragheb met with the Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister and Parliamentary Secretary for the Middle East Affairs, and handed him the message directed to the Japanese Foreign Minister, Taro ASO. During the meeting, Ambassador Ragheb affirmed Aboul Gheit’s keenness to maintain and enhance the current momentum characterizing the Egyptian Japanese relations, which are witnessing positive developments in all aspects of the cooperation. Ambassador Ragheb conveyed the Minister’s invitation to his Japanese counterpart to visit Egypt to resume the important consultations that have started during Aboul Gheit’s visit to Japan last May, which will, undoubtedly, extend political dialogue between the two countries, and will provide the opportunity for exchanging viewpoints on the latest developments in the regional and international issues of common interest . The Japanese official affirmed the respect and appreciation of the Japanese People and Government to the Egyptian leadership and its continuous efforts to realize peace in the Middle East. He also stressed his government’s stance regarding the importance of maintaining and reinforcing relations between Egypt and Japan, which Tokyo considers to be one of the fundamentals of the Japanese policy in the  Middle East. Ambassador Ragheb attended a series of meetings during the visit, including his meeting with the Director General of the Middle East and Africa Department, Okuda Norihiro, with whom he exchanged viewpoints on  a number of regional issues of common interest, including the recent developments in East Asia, particularly in  the Korean Peninsula, as well as the recent developments in the Middle East and Sudan.  During his visit to Afghanistan, Ambassador Ahmed Ragheb met with the Afghani Foreign Minister, who commended the historical ties between the two countries during the meeting and stressed his country’s keenness to reinforce all aspects of Afghanistan’s  relations with Egypt. The Minister also commended the role of Al-Azhar in promulgating moderate Islamic discourse in Islamic countries and the whole world and in correcting the wrong claims about Islam. During the meeting, both sides discussed bilateral technical cooperation, and training sessions that could be organized in Egypt for Afghanis to receive training and rehabilitation in different fields. Ambassador Ragheb attended several other meetings, the most important of which was his meeting with Abdul Salam Azim, Afghanistan’s Chief Judge, who commended cooperation between Egypt and Afghanistan in the judicial field, indicating the role Egypt could play in training Afghani legal cadres.