Japan, India Decide To 'Enhance' Defence Equipment And Technology Cooperation

Defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, is on his maiden visit abroad to Tokyo for holding defence dialogue with his counterpart General Nakatani since Sunday. The two held the detailed dialogue yesterday, defence ministry said here in New Delhi.

In their talks between the two ministers the two sides hailed the participation of Japan in the Malabar Exercise conducted by the USA and India in July 2014, along with occasional participations of Japan and Australia.

Monday’s dialogue also took note of the situation at the conjuncture of the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean or Indo Pacific as it is called fashionably now. The two sides acknowledged that “India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership has a key role in maintaining peace and stability in the region,” defence ministry said.

The two ministers also reviewed the security situations around the two countries. General Nakatani also briefed Parrikar about “recent efforts” undertaken by Japan regarding its security policy.

India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership has a key role in maintaining peace and stability in the region. Within the ambit of that, the two countries together decided to “Continue the high-level exchanges including the Ministerial meeting on an annual basis and defence minister of Japan will visit India in 2016.”

They also will “Hold the fourth vice-minister/defence secretary level Defence Policy Dialogue and the third vice-minister/secretary level “two plus two” dialogue in Delhi at the beginning of April, 2015.

Also, the service chiefs will be visiting on reciprocal basis. Japan and India will continue to promote exchanges on UN peacekeeping operations between Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK) of the Indian Army and Japan Peacekeeping Training and Research Center (JPC) of Japanese Joint Staff College, plus the Central Readiness Force (CRF) of Japan Ground Self Defence Force (JGSDF).