Algerian Foreign Minister Youcef Yousfi plans to visit Tokyo at the end of this month, a trip that will mark the end of decades of near-estrangement between Japan and the North African country.
Government sources on Monday said that Yousfi, the highest-level Algerian official to visit Japan since Algeria won independence from France in 1962, will meet with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and other Japanese leaders.
No Japanese Cabinet minister has visited Algeria — rich in oil and gas — since January 1982, when the late Michio Watanabe went there as finance minister, the sources said.