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TOKYO: Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party have broadly agreed to form a coalition government, setting the stage for the country’s first female prime minister, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.
Sanae Takaichi, leader of the conservative LDP, and Hirofumi Yoshimura, head of the smaller right-leaning group, known as Ishin, are set to sign an agreement on their alliance on Monday, Kyodo said.
Calls to the LDP and Ishin headquarters to seek comment went unanswered outside business hours.
Ishin’s co-head, Fumitake Fujita, raised expectations for a deal on Friday, saying the two parties had made “big progress” in coalition talks.
Ishin lawmakers will vote for Takaichi in an election to choose the prime minister in parliament on Tuesday, but the party does not plan to send ministers to Takaichi’s cabinet initially, the news agency said.
Takaichi’s path to succeed Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba had seemed all but certain after she won her party’s presidency early this month. But then the long-ruling LDP’s junior partner, Komeito, quit their 26-year coalition, setting off a flurry of negotiations with rival parties to select the next premier.
In an effort to get Ishin on board, the LDP offered to keep working toward banning donations from companies and other organizations and exempting food items from Japan’s sales tax, Kyodo said.
Ishin has proposed eliminating the tax on food items for two years.

ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday. It follows more than a week of fighting that has killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.
The two sides agreed to establish mechanisms to consolidate lasting peace and stability, as well as holding follow-up talks in the coming days to ensure the ceasefire’s sustainability, the Qatari statement said.
Delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan were in Doha for talks to resolve the deadliest crisis between them in several years. The talks were mediated by Qatar and Turkiye.
Both governments had sent their defense ministers to lead the talks, which Pakistan said would focus on “immediate measures to end cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and restore peace and stability along the border.”
Each country has said it was responding to aggression from the other. Afghanistan denies harboring militants who carry out attacks in border areas.

Regional powers, including ������Ƶ and Qatar, have called for calm, as the violence threatened to further destabilize a region where groups including the Daesh group and Al-Qaeda are trying to resurface.
A 48-hour ceasefire intended to pause hostilities expired Friday evening. Hours later, Pakistan struck across the border.

Pakistani security officials confirmed to The Associated Press Saturday that there were strikes on two districts in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province.
The targets were hideouts of the militant Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. One said the operation was a direct response to the suicide bombing of a security forces compound in Mir Ali, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province a day earlier.
The Pakistani Air Force raids killed dozens of armed fighters and there were no civilian deaths, they said.
But Afghan officials said the aerial assaults killed at least 10 civilians, including women, children and local cricketers. The attacks prompted the national cricket board to boycott an upcoming series in Pakistan.
On Saturday, several thousand people attended funeral prayers in Paktika. They sat in the open air as loudspeakers broadcast sermons and condemnation.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, in a statement, criticized the “repeated crimes of Pakistani forces and the violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty.”
Such acts were deemed provocative and viewed as “deliberate attempts” to prolong the conflict, he added.
The two countries share a 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border known as the Durand Line, but Afghanistan has never recognized it.
Pakistan is grappling with surging militancy, especially in areas bordering Afghanistan. It also accuses its nuclear-armed neighbor and rival India of backing armed groups, without providing any evidence.
Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, urged Afghans to choose “mutual security over perpetual violence and progress over hard-line obscurantism.”
“The Taliban must rein in the proxies who have sanctuaries in Afghanistan,” he told an audience on Saturday at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.