Japan recognizing Palestine as a state is "not a matter of 'if,' but of 'when,'" Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said at a high-level meeting on a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel in New York on Monday. During the conference, five countries including France declared their state recognition of Palestine. Last week, Iwaya said that Japan would refrain from recognizing Palestine as a state for the time being. "Japan has consistently supported a two-state solution," Iwaya said in his speech at the conference, held at the U.N. headquarters. Japan's top diplomat argued that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip "has reached an extremely grave and alarming juncture that threatens to erode the very foundations of a two-state solution."