India shares Japan’s vision for a free, open, secure and rules-based Indo-Pacific, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in a conversation with the Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs of Japan Oka Masami and also stressed that both the countries must continue to expand the scope of India-Japan bilateral cooperation.
Mr. Oka co-chaired the 7th Defence Policy Dialogue with Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane on Wednesday. “The visiting dignitary reiterated Japan’s keenness to further enhance bilateral defence cooperation, including collaboration in defence equipment and technology,” a Defence Ministry statement said.
On the dialogue, the statement said that a wide range of issues, including service-level exercises and engagements, regional security issues and cooperation in defence equipment and technology, were discussed. “The Japanese Vice Minister also presented policy updates from their recently released National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy.”
Stressing on the need for collaboration between defence industries on both sides, Mr. Aramane invited Japanese defence industries to look at investment opportunities in India under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the statement said adding that both sides agreed to diversify cooperation in new and emerging domains like defence space and cyber.
On Thursday, the Vice Minister visited the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre for Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) at Gurugram. He was briefed on contemporary maritime security situation in wider IOR and the Centre’s role in cueing operational responses through collaboration and seamless information sharing, the IFC-IOR Twitter handle said in a post.
The Defence Policy Dialogue is an institutionalised mechanism between India and Japan to discuss bilateral defence cooperation.
Published - April 07, 2023 03:33 am IST
