TOKYO (Reuters) – Foreign and defence ministers from Japan and the United States will hold security talks in Japan on July 28 in an effort to push forward what U.S. President Joe Biden called a historic upgrade in the alliance.
The so-called “2+2” talks will cover extended deterrence, a term used to describe the U.S. commitment to use its nuclear and conventional forces to deter attacks on allies, Japan’s foreign ministry said on Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also hold a bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart Yoko Kamikawa during the visit, while U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will hold three-way talks with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea.
Tokyo and Washington in April announced a series of initiatives to strengthen their ties in what Biden called the most significant upgrade since the U.S.-Japan alliance, which was first signed in 1951, began.
These include efforts to deepen cooperation between defence industries and upgrade military command structures to improve coordination, as both countries look to deter regional threats they see emanating from China, North Korea and Russia.
“These historic 2+2 talks will cement our shift from a focus on Alliance protection to one of Alliance projection,” U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said.
“Through a transformation of the command structure of the United States forces in Japan, aligned with Japan’s own groundbreaking launch of its joint command next March, the Alliance will be ready and equipped to respond to the security challenges of the Indo-Pacific for decades to come.”
(Reporting by John Geddie and Tim Kelly; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Andrew Heavens)
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