Lost in Translation: Official Intentions

As previously reported in The Daily Beast, the crisis could possibly have been averted last year if the Japanese government had not detained freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, who was scheduled to travel to Syria last October to mediate Haruna Yukawa’s trial and secure his release. 

Nikkan Gendai, a daily newspaper in Japan, quotes a former Japanese diplomat’s critique of the way the administration has handled negotiations so far. 

“The Abe Administration’s sense of diplomacy and lack of negotiation ability was made clear in this hostage crisis,” Amaki Naoto, a former diplomat, told Nikkan Gendai. 

“I was shocked by how Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga indicated his awareness that the ‘deadline is at 2:50 PM on the 23rd’ even though they were in the middle of negotiating [the hostages’ release]. It would at least be better if they had taken a firm attitude that “the deadline is when the conclusion is made” but it’s unprecedented that the side whose hostages were taken would set their own deadline. Why show the other side, the cards you’re holding? It’s out of the question.” 

In that same article, Nikkan Gendai also suggest ISIS’s decision to kill Yukawa and Goto unless the $200 million ransom was paid could have been sparked by Abe’s Jan. 17 speech in Cairo. In that speech, Abe pledged $200 million in non-military humanitarian aid to countries and refugees in the Middle East, but the paper reports the government didn’t hire a competent English translator and no Arabic translation was even attempted.

(Daily Beast)