Japan hopes to participate in NATO's Ukraine assistance initiative

Japan's Defence Ministry hopes to coordinate its participation in the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, or NSATU, initiative, Defence Minister Gen Nakatani told visiting NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Tuesday.

In response, Rutte said that the Japanese move is welcome. NSATU was launched last September to play roles such as supplying and repairing military equipment for Ukraine.

Nakatani said that Japan's participation would be useful, including in drawing lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Japanese ministry will consider in what way it will participate in the NATO initiative, ministry officials said.

Nakatani and Rutte also discussed the security situation in East Asia, with Rutte stressing that the security of the Euro-Atlantic region and that of the Indo-Pacific region are inseparable.

Rutte was on his first visit to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office last October.

Before the meeting with Nakatani, he visited the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, and boarded the MSDF destroyer Mogami.

$Japan hopes to participate in NATO\'s Ukraine assistance initiative$