Japanese Foreign Policy towards the Republic of Croatia: Preventive Diplomacy and Post-conflict Reconstruction 1994 - 1997

Abstract

This article analyses the policy of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) towards the former republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in the 1990s during the Yugoslav crisis. It argues that MOFA adopted an indirect foreign policy approach since it acted through theUnited Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to help foster the peace process. The article particularly focuses on the roles played by Yasushi Akashi, the head of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sadako Ogata, through whom Japan provided aid during the humanitarian crisis. Japan exerted its preventive diplomacy to defuse tensions in the successor republics and to prevent thespread of the conflict to Macedonia and Albania. After the end of the conflict, Japan’s policy towards the region focused on post-conflict reconstruction and supporting the transition to prepare for theEuropean integration process.