EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell met with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya in Tokyo as part of a tour of East Asia that includes South Korea, where he will also hold a strategic dialogue.
The pact with Japan is the first security partnership that the EU has signed with an Indo-Pacific country, and reflects the bloc's increasing engagement in the region as China and Russia ramp up joint military exercises and North Korea sends troops to Russia, Euro News reported.
Borrell said the agreement was a "historical and very timely step given the situation in both of our regions".
Under the partnership, Japan and the EU said Europe and the Indo-Pacific region are “highly interconnected and interdependent” and agreed to hold a regular working-level security and defense dialogue and joint naval exercises, which will include other nations.
They said they will also cooperate in cybersecurity and space defense, consider a possible intelligence sharing pact, promote exchanges of defense industry information and work together in nuclear disarmament efforts.
As part of a new security strategy adopted in 2022, Japan been accelerating its military build-up through its alliance with the US — its only treaty ally — and other partners — including Australia, the UK and a number of European and Indo-Pacific countries.
MA/PR