NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will visit Japan next week for the first time since taking office in October.
NATO announced on Thursday that the secretary general will visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Rutte is scheduled to meet Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, visit the Maritime Self-Defense Force base in Yokosuka City, south of Tokyo, and hold talks with Japanese industry representatives.
A senior NATO official told NHK that when Rutte met US President Donald Trump in the United States last month, Trump indicated that deepening cooperation between NATO and Indo-Pacific countries is important.
Rutte is expected to use his visit to work toward strengthening ties between NATO and Japan. He is likely to exchange views on how to respond to China, which has been deepening coordination with Russia, as well as on NATO’s possible cooperation with Japan’s defense industry.
AloJapan.com