(Provisional translation by an external company for reference purpose only)
In two days, on Thursday, September 12, I will welcome H.E. Mr. Antti Häkkänen, Minister of Defence of Finland, and we will hold the Japan-Finland Defense Ministerial Meeting. This will be the first Japan-Finland Defense Ministerial Meeting since the Tokyo meeting in 2022, two years ago. Japan and Finland share fundamental values. Furthermore, building on Finland’s accession to NATO, creating opportunities for such high-level dialogues is very meaningful for expanding defense cooperation and exchange between our two countries. At the meeting, we plan to share our countries’ recognitions of regional situations and hold concrete discussions toward further advancing security and defense cooperation between Japan and Finland.