On December 11, 2023, commencing at 11:05 a.m. for approximately 20 minutes, Ms. KAMIKAWA Yoko, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, received a courtesy call from Ambassadors of 8 nations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who are visiting Japan. The overview of the courtesy call is as follows.

At the outset, Minister Kamikawa welcomed Ambassadors of the United States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Italy’s visit to Japan, and stated that the Japan-NATO relationship has been significantly developed as the Japanese Prime Minister attended the NATO Summit Meetings and the Minister for Foreign Affair’s attended the Meetings of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs for two consecutive years, and as Japan and NATO formulated the “Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP)” to identify areas of concrete cooperation. Minister Kamikawa mentioned that the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is indispensable; therefore, coordination between Japan and NATO members sharing values and principles is getting more and more important.

Furthermore, Minister Kamikawa stated that Japan would like to further enhance cooperation between Japan and NATO by building up concrete cooperation in the priority areas, including cyber, space security, maritime security, and Women, Peace and Security (WPS).

In response, Ambassadors stated that they will enhance the Japan-NATO cooperation in the areas that Minister Kamikawa mentioned, and the depening of the Japan-NATO cooperation is natural, and expressed their gratitude for Japan’s support to Ukraine. Also, Minister Kamikawa and the Ambassadors held a lively discussions on the situation in Ukraine, situation in the East Asia, the Japan-ASEAN relations, situation concerning Africa and other issues.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.