TOKYO, December 1. /TASS/. The Japanese government considers cooperation with NATO to be of “strategic importance”. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated this in a telephone conversation with Union Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“Takaichi emphasized that the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions is indivisible, and that cooperation between Japan and NATO and NATO and partner countries (Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea) is of strategic importance,” Japan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Takaichi and Rutte, as noted, agreed to cooperate to “take relations to the next level.”
Japan has actively developed cooperation with NATO in recent years. In January, a separate permanent Japanese delegation to NATO was opened in Brussels and in April Rutte visited Tokyo, where then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed to cooperation in the defense industry.
