To ensure that peace and stability will prevail in the Indo-Pacific Region, Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani on Monday said his country would further deepen its “bilateral cooperation” with the Philippines in the areas of operational cooperation, people-to-people exchange, and defense equipment and technology cooperation.

In a media briefing at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel, Nakatani said these initiatives are necessary considering the Philippines and Japan are “strategic partners”.

Aside from this, the Japanese defense minister said these efforts are needed as the security environment is becoming “increasingly severe”.

“And in today’s (Monday) Japan-Philippines Defense Minister’s meeting, first of all, Secretary (Gilberto) Teodoro (Jr.) and I firmly concurred that the security environment surrounding us is becoming increasingly severe and that it is necessary for the two countries as strategic partners to further enhance defense cooperation and collaboration in order to maintain peace and stability in Indo-Pacific amid such a situation,” Nakatani said.

The Japanese defense minister said there is a need to deepen bilateral cooperation in the mentioned areas speedily.

“The first is to strengthen operational cooperation, having welcomed that advancement of bilateral and multilateral training and unit-to-unit exchanges, including port calls with Secretary Teodoro. We agreed to establish a strategic dialogue between high-level operational action officers and advance specific discussion toward deeper information sharing and advanced operational collaboration in order to further elevate bilateral cooperation, which has been built up thus far,” he added.

According to Nakatani, he and Teodoro agreed to start discussions between defense authorities on military information protection mechanisms.

“And the second thing is to enhance people-to-people exchange. Yesterday (Sunday) at Wallace Air Station (San Fernando, La Union), I was able to meet with a graduate of (the) Japanese National Defense Academy. Those are graduates who graduated from the National Defense Academy, and they are now serving in the Philippines, and they are playing active roles at the Wallace Air Station,” he added.

“I would like to welcome the fact that human resources, who serve as the bridge of both countries, have been developed through educational exchanges and confirm that we will continue to promote multilayered people-to-people exchanges, such as high-level exchanges and acceptance of international students on National Defense Academy,” the Japanese defense chief stressed.

Third, Nakatani said he would push for further promotion of defense equipment and technology cooperation.

“Having confirmed that cooperation on contracted Japanese air surveillance and radio system(s) is in progress, we also concurred (with) the launch of a new high-level dialogue between the defense equipment authorities,” he added.

This also includes the dispatch of Japanese public and private missions to the Philippines from the perspective of advancing cooperation between the two nations in a mutually beneficial manner. (PNA)