TOKYO: Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s only daughter, Princess Aiko, said she is heartbroken by the loss of many lives in Ukraine during her first solo news conference Thursday as an adult royal member.
“I feel extremely heartbroken by the loss of many precious lives in Ukraine,” Aiko said, responding to a question about Russia’s invasion.
Quoting her father’s birthday remark in February, Aiko said she hoped exchanges between people will overcome national and regional borders and lead to a peaceful world where people tolerate differences.
“I strongly believe in peace,” she added, noting her visit to Hiroshima as a junior high school student when she felt strongly about the importance of peace after seeing the horrendous scenes of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing at the peace museum.
While growing up, she said her grandfather Emperor Emeritus Akihito, who abdicated three years ago, often told her what royal duties are about: stay close to the people — a lesson also followed by his son Naruhito.
“I believe that it is most important as a royal member to fulfil our duty while praying for the people’s happiness and share joy and sorrow,” Aiko said during her first news conference since reaching adulthood at age 20 on Dec. 1.
Her grandfather, the son of controversial late Emperor Hirohito under whose name Japan fought the World War II, devoted his career to promote peace. He won the hearts of many by reaching out to those discriminated against and victims of disasters with the help of his wife, Michiko, a first commoner to marry an emperor.
Aiko said her thoughts go to residents in disaster-hit areas, including those still recovering from the deadly March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima prefecture. On Wednesday, four people died in a 7.4 magnitude quake that struck the region again.
Aiko is the only child of Naruhito and Empress Masako, a Harvard-educated former diplomat. She is currently studying Japanese literature at Gakushuin University.
Soon after giving birth, Masako developed a stress-induced mental condition, which she is still recovering from, apparently because of criticism for not producing a male heir.
Aiko on Thursday thanked Masako for “giving birth to me.”
Under the current law, Aiko is not eligible to ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She also has to leave her family if she marries a commoner. Aiko said marriage still seems a distant future.
The 1947 Imperial House Law, which largely preserves pre-war family values, only allows male-line succession and forces female royal members marrying commoners to lose their royal status.
A government-commissioned panel of experts submitted a report to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in December proposing ways to maintain potential successors without changing Japan’s male-only imperial succession system, which is putting the shrinking family on the verge of extinction.
Recent media surveys showed 80 percent of the public support female emperors.
The panel avoided discussing whether to allow female emperors, and suggested restoring now-defunct royal households to adopt male descendants as potential heirs. It proposed a possibility of allowing female members to retain their royal status after marrying commoners — a less controversial step.
The steadily shrinking royal membership is down to 17. Naruhito has only two possible successors — his younger brother Akishino and his teenage son, Hisahito, the only underage member of the graying royal family.
Japan princess says lives lost in Ukraine breaks her heart
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Japan princess says lives lost in Ukraine breaks her heart
- “I feel extremely heartbroken by the loss of many precious lives in Ukraine,” Aiko said
- While growing up, she said her grandfather Emperor Emeritus Akihito often told her what royal duties are about: stay close to the people
Kyiv receives 909 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers
- The exchange of prisoners and war dead is one of the few areas of cooperation
- Russia has not commented on the latest patriation
KYIV: Kyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers killed during battles with Russia, the second such patriation in the space of three weeks.
The exchange of prisoners and war dead is one of the few areas of cooperation between the two sides since Russia invaded Ukraine more than three years ago.
“As a result of repatriation activities, the bodies of 909 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government agency, said in a statement on social media.
On 28 March, the two countries conducted a similar exchange, with Kyiv receiving the same number of bodies, 909, and Moscow 43, according to Russian state media.
Russia has not commented on the latest patriation.
In mid-February, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told US broadcaster NBC News that more than 46,000 of his soldiers had been killed and some 380,000 wounded.
Russia has not reported on its losses since autumn 2022, when it acknowledged fewer than 6,000 soldiers killed.
An ongoing investigation by Mediazona and BBC News Russian has identified the names of around 100,000 dead Russian soldiers since the beginning of the war, based on information from publicly available sources.
US Vice President says he is ‘optimistic’ Russia-Ukraine war can be ended
- Vance saw Meloni in Washington on Thursday
- “We do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close”
ROME: The United States is optimistic it can put an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, Vice President JD Vance said on Friday as he met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for the second time in 24 hours.
Vance saw Meloni in Washington on Thursday and the two have since flown to the Italian capital ahead of the Easter holidays.
“I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine ... even in the past 24 hours, we think we have some interesting things to report on,” Vance told reporters sitting alongside Meloni.
“Since there are the negotiations I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close,” he added.
Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said US President Donald Trump would walk away from trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless there were clear signs that a deal could be done.
Russia rains missiles on Ukraine as US mulls ending truce efforts
- US President Donald Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a truce
- There has been no major concessions from the Kremlin, despite repeated negotiations between his administration and Russia
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russia fired a fresh volley of missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight, wounding dozens of people, Kyiv said Friday, as the United States warned it could end efforts to broker a ceasefire if it did not see progress soon.
US President Donald Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a truce, but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin, despite repeated negotiations between his administration and Russia on the three-year war.
After meeting European officials in Paris to discuss Ukraine, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington needed to figure out soon whether a ceasefire was “doable in the short term.”
“Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” he told reporters at Le Bourget airport before leaving the French capital.
Russia fired at least six missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine overnight, killing two people in the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy and wounding 70 others, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the attack, which came just days before Easter.
“This is how Russia started Good Friday – with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shahed drones. A mockery of our people and cities,” he said on Telegram.
An AFP photographer in the city of Kharkiv witnessed the aftermath of one strike, which left rubble and debris scattered across a street.
An elderly resident could be seen bandaged, her face smeared with blood, while residents assessed the damage.
Since taking office Trump has embarked on a quest to warm ties with the Kremlin that has alarmed Kyiv and driven a wedge between the US and its European allies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last month rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for a full and unconditional pause in the conflict, while the Kremlin has made a truce in the Black Sea conditional on the West lifting certain sanctions.
Trump has also repeatedly expressed anger and frustration at Zelensky in a marked break from policy under his predecessor, Joe Biden.
The US is pushing Ukraine into a deal that would give Washington sweeping access to its mineral resources.
Ukraine’s prime minister will visit Washington next week for talks with top US officials aimed at clinching the minerals and resources deal by April 26, according to a US-Ukraine signed “memorandum of intent” published Friday.
Trump wants the deal – designed to give the United States royalty payments on profits from Ukrainian mining of resources and rare minerals – as compensation for aid given to Ukraine under Biden.
France hosted meetings between US and European officials in Paris on Thursday, saying the talks had launched a “positive process.”
The meetings included French President Emmanuel Macron, Rubio and US envoy Steve Witkoff.
European officials had expressed dismay at being shut out from the peace process, while Ukraine has expressed concern that Witkoff – one of Trump’s closest allies – is biased toward Russia.
Zelensky accused Witkoff on Thursday of having adopted the “strategy of the Russian side,” after the US envoy suggested a peace deal with Moscow hinged on the status of Ukraine’s occupied territories.
“He is consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know, spreading Russian narratives,” Zelensky told journalists.
Witkoff told Fox News on Monday that a peace settlement depended on “so-called five territories” – the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea, that Russia claims to have annexed.
The Kremlin wants its claims over the regions to be recognized as part of any peace deal, a proposal that Ukraine has balked at. Moscow does not fully control any of them except for Crimea, which it seized in 2014.
Zelensky also said Thursday he had “information” China was supplying weapons to Russia, amid an escalating row between Kyiv and Beijing over China’s support for Moscow.
China, which has portrayed itself as a neutral party in the three-year war, has hit back at Kyiv’s criticism and called on all parties in the conflict to refrain from “irresponsible remarks.”
Indonesia weighs US arms purchases to curb tariff threat, Bloomberg News reports
- Equipment includes fighter jets and munitions
Dubai: Indonesia is considering purchasing billions of dollars worth of US-manufactured defense equipment, including fighter jets and munitions, Bloomberg news reported on Friday.
Indonesia’s Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin held a closed-door meeting of senior officials on April 8 to deliver a directive from the President Prabowo Subianto instructing them to identify US weapons that could be imported or fast-tracked for purchase, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the gathering.
EU needs to decide on possible Iran sanctions, Rubio says
- Rubio said the US administration is looking for a peaceful solution with Iran
PARIS: Europe needs to decide if it is willing to reimpose sanctions on Iran when it becomes clear it is close to developing a nuclear weapon, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.
“The Europeans have a decision to make, because I believe we should all anticipate that they’re about to get a report from the IAEA that says not just Iran is out of compliance, but Iran is dangerously close to a weapon, closer than they’ve ever been,” Rubio said in Paris after meeting with European leaders.
Rubio said the US administration is looking for a peaceful solution with Iran, but will never tolerate the country developing a nuclear weapon.
“It has to be something that not just prevents Iran from having a nuclear weapon now,” he said about a possible agreement.
“But in the future as well, not just for ten years with some sort of sunset provision or the like.”
