NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Wednesday reaffirmed their commitment to support Ukraine through sanctions against Russia.
“We would like to further promote cooperation in various fields between Japan and NATO as partners who share core values,” Stoltenberg said in a statement released Wednesday by Japan’s Foreign Ministry after a meeting in Tokyo.
Stoltenberg and Hayashi said that countries “with similar ideas and common values should come together and continue to impose sanctions on Russia and support Ukraine.”
They both further agreed to work and collaborate on the Indo-Pacific situation.
This Wednesday, the head of NATO celebrates his last day of official visit to Japan, after having met this Tuesday with the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, to whom he promised to strengthen ties between Tokyo and the Atlantic Alliance in the face of the “challenge represented by China’s military rise and its rapprochement with Russia.
This Asian tour by the head of NATO, who also visited Seoul between Sunday and Monday, aims to strengthen collaboration between the Alliance and the main US partners in the region, at a time described as “a historic crossroads” and also “the most serious situation”. and complex security situation since the end of the Second World War”.
On Wednesday, Stoltenberg also delivered a speech at Keio University in Tokyo, where he said Russian President Vladimir Putin “made a serious mistake by underestimating the courage of the Ukrainian people, NATO and their allies.”
During his visit to Seoul on Monday, the NATO secretary general also discussed with South Korean leaders ways to further their security cooperation in the face of challenges posed by North Korea and China, and further urged South Korea to send weapons to kyiv.
Source: TSF
