Hanoi (VNA) – President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and a high-ranking Party and State delegation left Hanoi on September 25 for Japan to attend a State funeral for late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in Tokyo from September 25-28.

The former Japanese PM passed away at Nara Medical University in Nara prefecture on July 8. Earlier the same day, he was shot from behind while campaigning for a candidate of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the prefecture.

Abe, 67, was Japan's longest-serving PM. He stayed in this position from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020.

He signed the Japan-Vietnam Joint Statement “Toward a Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia” in 2006, setting the first milestone for the strategic partnership between the two countries, and signed another joint statement upgrading the relationship to an extensive strategic partnership for peace and prosperity in Asia in March 2014./.
VNA