Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi left Japan on Sunday afternoon for a weeklong European trip to promote nuclear disarmament and weapons test bans.
Kawaguchi will meet with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and other senior officials in Kiev on Monday. She will then travel to Vienna on Wednesday to meet with Mohamed el Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and attend the third conference on implementing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Kawaguchi will head for Geneva on Thursday to attend a disarmament conference. On the sidelines of the forum, she will meet with Supachai Panitchpakdi, director general of the World Trade Organization.
Her last European stop will be Belgium, where she will meet with Chris Patten, European Union commissioner for external affairs, and other senior EU officials in Brussels.
Kawaguchi will leave Brussels for Cancun, Mexico, on Sept. 7 to attend the fifth WTO ministerial conference from Sept. 10 to 14.