North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Meeting between NATO Secretary General and Indo-Pacific Partners (Overview)
On June 25, commencing at 3:20 p.m. (at 10:20 p.m. JST) for approximately 30 minutes, Mr. IWAYA Takeshi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, who was visiting The Hague, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, on the occasion of the NATO Summit held a meeting between NATO Secretary General and Indo-Pacific partners with H.E. Mr. Mark Rutte, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Rt. Hon. Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand, The Hon. Richard Marles MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence of the Commonwealth of Australia , Mr. Wi Sung-lac, National Security Advisor of the Republic of Korea. The overview of the meeting is as follows. In the context of this meeting, a statement between NATO Secretary General and the four Indo-Pacific partners (English (PDF)
) was issued.
- At the outset, Foreign Minister Iwaya stated that it is very significant that they affirmed the connectivity between Indo-Pacific and NATO for four consecutive years and he stated that the security environment of the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic is becoming more severe and that the security in both regions has increasingly become inseparable. He added that the necessity of responses to unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force, military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, cyber attacks, and others, as well as defense industry cooperation is growing.
- NATO Secretary General Rutte, and the participants of the Indo-Pacific partners exchanged views on situations in the Indo-Pacific, such as their policies toward North Korea, including on the nuclear and missile issues as well as the abductions issue, as well as on the current global security environment including the situations of Iran. They went on to confirm NATO’s further engagement in the Indo-Pacific and the importance of concrete cooperation between NATO and the Indo-Pacific partners. In this context, Secretary General Rutte once again expressed his gratitude to the Indo-Pacific partners for their support to Ukraine, and expressed his intention to enhance cooperation in fields such as the defense industry.