India, Japan discuss reciprocal supply agreement for militaries

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh today conducted separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Japan and the Philippines, General Nakatani and Gilberto Teodoro, respectively.

Rajnath Singh is on a three-day visit (November 20-22) to Vientiane, Laos.

India and Japan deliberated on improving the interoperability between the militaries and reciprocal provision of supply and services agreement.

If agreed upon, it would allow Indian warships and planes to gets supplies, spares and immediate help at Japanese bases. The same facility would be available for Japanese forces at Indian bases.

India and Japan discussed participation of militaries in various bilateral and multilateral exercises. They also agreed to explore new areas of cooperation in the air domain.

The two sides reiterated the importance of defence industry and technology cooperation between the two countries. Both sides agreed for enhanced cooperation in co-production and co-development in the defence manufacturing sector.

Last week, India and Japan inked an agreement for co-development of a specialised stealth radio communication equipment used by Naval warships.

With Philippines, both sides agreed to expand and deepen cooperation in exchange of subject matter experts, defence industry, counter-terrorism, space and maritime domain.