Introduction
The year 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Türkiye and Japan. The Republic of Türkiye and Japan established diplomatic relations on August 6, 1924. The following year, in March 1925, the Japanese Embassy in Türkiye was opened in İstanbul (the Japanese Embassy was moved to Ankara in October 1937). In November of the same year, Saikichi Obata was appointed as the first Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and dispatched to İstanbul. Around the same time, Hitoshi Ashida, who served as Prime Minister after the Second World War, took up his post as first secretary, and after Obata returned to Japan, he served as temporary chargé d’affaires for a period. Furthermore, during this period, historian Chishu Naito was also working in İstanbul as a first-class interpreter. In 1931, Naito wrote the first book on the relationship between Türkiye and Japan, titled History of Japan-Turkish Negotiations, and also published Turkish language textbooks and a dictionary. He was a pioneer in Turkish studies in Japan.