Cairo supports Japan's bid to be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and its deployment of Ground Self-Defense Force troops to southern Iraq, Egyptian Ambassador to Japan Hisham Badr said.
Badr said the Islamic community has high expectations for Japan to be a new role model, one different from the United States and other Western nations, and thus should be represented in the Security Council.
"After the Iraq war, people (in the Middle East) were turned off by hard power or abuse of power," he said during a symposium Tuesday at Aoyama Gakuin University cosponsored by The Japan Times.