Ishiba to visit Netherlands from Tuesday for NATO summit
Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, right, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, shake hands at the end of a joint press briefing, at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on April 9.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will be in the Netherlands for three days from Tuesday to attend a NATO summit, the government said Friday, as Japan aims to deepen its partnership with the military alliance.
It will be the fourth straight year that a sitting Japanese prime minister has participated in a NATO summit. Japan is not a NATO member but is one of the alliance's Indo-Pacific partners.
Ishiba also plans to hold bilateral talks with leaders of NATO members and those of its partners while in the Hague for the summit, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
U.S. President Donald Trump is among the expected attendees at the two-day summit from Tuesday.
"Given the severe security environment we face, and based on the shared view that the security of the Euro-Atlantic and that of the Indo-Pacific are inseparable, Japan, along with other partners from the region, will discuss how we can cooperate with NATO in concrete terms," Hayashi said.
At a meeting in Tokyo in April, Ishiba and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte underlined the need to strengthen the Japan-NATO partnership amid security threats from Russia and China and agreed to push for defense industry cooperation.
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