Remarks

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(As delivered)

Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General

Thank you and Minister Nakatani, dear Gen it's great to see you again indeed, and thank you for your warm welcome in Tokyo.

This visit, I think is also a clear sign of our deepening cooperation, as you said. And as you also said, a stronger Japan- NATO cooperation is necessary in an increasingly dangerous world.

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine shows that we cannot take our security for granted. China, North Korea and Russia are stepping up their military exercises and their cooperation, undermining global stability, and that means what happens in the Euro-Atlantic matters for the Indo-Pacific and vice versa. So our security, I believe, is inseparable.

I am deeply grateful for Japan's strong support to Ukraine, including your substantial contribution through NATO's Comprehensive Assistance Package. And also thank you for the interest you just expressed to join NSATU, that would be great.

And I welcome your plans to increase defence spending and make Japan's already capable Self Defense Forces even stronger. It was impressive to see them today, together with US Seventh Fleet at Yokosuka maritime base earlier today.
We are stepping up our cooperation across a range of areas, from crisis response operations to cyber defence, maritime security, all these areas.

Japan is also a world leader when it comes to developing new capabilities, innovation, space - which I saw on my visit to Mitsubishi electric just a couple of hours ago. And I'm really confident that we can boost our defence industrial cooperation, even further.
And to put it in just one sentence; NATO and Japan share the same values, and we face many of the same challenges so therefore, I look forward to working even more closely together.

Thank you.