Leader of the Japanese far-right Issuikai movement, Mitsuhiro Kimura, met in Sokhumi on May 12 with the breakaway region’s senior officials.

Kimura is a leader of the group, which denies Japan’s wartime atrocities, since 2001.

He met with the breakaway region’s parliamentary speaker Nugzar Ashuba; foreign minister Maxim Gvinjia and prime minister Sergey Shamba, the Abkhaz news agency, Apsnipress, reported.

Ashuba said after meeting with Kimura, that Issuikai “is the most prominent among the Japanese right-wing political organizations,” which “has a rostrum and we will use it.”