Spain to open a defence attaché office in Japan for the first time

Luis Ayllón The Spanish Government will soon open a defence attaché office at the Embassy in Japan, as part of a process of increasing military cooperation between the two countries. The opening of the Attaché Office in Tokyo was announced last week by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, Diego Martínez Belío, during the Spain-Japan Council Forum, held in the Japanese city of Takamatsu, in the province of Kagawa. It will be the first time that Spain has a military attaché office in Japan, a country that just over two years ago undertook a review of its defence policy, opening up more to relations with other countries. The result of this review was the opening in April 2022 of a defence attaché office at the Japanese Embassy in Madrid. Until that date, although there was a person responsible for military affairs in the Japanese diplomatic representation, there had never been a defence attaché. The opening of the Spanish Defence Attaché in Tokyo is in response to this decision and underlines the increase in cooperation in this field between the two countries, which includes both purely military aspects and those related to the Defence industry. In fact, last August, for the first time in its history, the port of Valencia received a visit from the Japanese Training Fleet, made up of the training ship ‘Kashima’ and the escort ship ‘Shimakaze’. And just a couple of weeks ago, the Japanese ambassador to Spain, Takahiro Nakamae, awarded the Gold and Silver Star of the Order of the Rising Sun to the Secretary General for Defence Policy, Admiral Juan Francisco Martínez Núñez. According to military sources, having a Spanish Defence Attaché in Tokyo will facilitate the presence of Spanish naval and air units in the Indo-Pacific and will open up new strategic opportunities for Spain in this area, where our country has Defence Attachés open in Beijing, Seoul and Manila. Spanish Air Force units participated last summer, alongside those from France and Germany, in the Pacific Skies 2024 exercise. During the deployment, Spanish, French and German aircraft took part in the exercises Artic Defender (Alaska), Pitch Black (Australia) and Tarang Shakti (India), as well as making logistical stops in some of the countries in the area such as Japan, the Philippines and Malaysia

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