Official visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe

The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzō Abe, will be arriving visiting to Malta later this evening for official talks with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

The Prime Ministers and their delegations will conduct discussions on bilateral relations at the Auberge de Castille. The two leaders are expected to issue a joint statement after the meeting.

Abe's brief visit comes after the Japanese Premier attended a meeting of G7 Heads of State in Taormina. He will be flying to back Japan from Malta.

Abe, who was elected Prime Minister for the first time in 2006, is the youngest person to assume the office of Prime Minister of Japan in the post war period. He was re-elected in 2012, after relinquishing the post in 2007 for health reasons.

During his stay in Malta, Abe will also be paying tribute to the memory of the Japanese military personnel who are buried at the Kalkara military cemetery. The 68 officers and other ranks of Japanese Navy who had been stationed on the island during the First World War were lost in June 1917, when the Japanese warship Sakaki was torpedoed by a submarine from the Austro-Hungarian Navy off the Greek island of Cerigotto.