Phl, Japan convene political-military meet

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines and Japan have convened the 5th Philippine-Japan political-military meeting pursuant to the 2011 Joint Statement between the two countries.

The military-to-military dialogue was also convened last Wednesday at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of National Defense (DND).

Ma. Theresa Lazaro, foreign affairs assistant secretary for Asia and Pacific Affairs, led the Philippine delegation to the meeting.

Danilo Augusto Francia, defense assistant secretary for plans and programs, co-chaired the meeting with officials from the Coast Guard and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.

Representing the Japanese delegation were officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Ambassador for Foreign Policy Bureau Masafumi Ishii, and the Ministry of Defense, led by Director General Kazuo Sunaga.

During the dialogue, the two countries undertook substantive discussions and exchange of views on their respective security policies, the changing regional security architecture, situation in the Korean peninsula, nuclear security, disaster prevention and management, among others.

Existing and future cooperation activities in the security and defense fields in both the bilateral and multilateral arena were also discussed.

The Political-Military and Military-to-Military meeting is a dialogue mechanism established in 2006.

This is in preparation for the Philippine-Japan Vice-Ministerial Strategic Dialogue to be convened later this month.

The last such meeting was held in Tokyo in August 2010.