Kamikawa Calls for Stronger Japan-Australia Security Ties

Sydney, Sept. 5 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in an article she contributed to an Australian economic paper that Japan and Australia should bolster their security ties further.

“We are at a turning point in history,” she said in the article published on Thursday in The Australian Financial Review. “Now is the time to continue to further strengthen the already resolute security cooperation between Japan and Australia.”

The article was released to coincide with the day’s so-called two-plus-two security meeting of foreign and defense ministers from Japan and Australia in a suburb of Melbourne in southeastern Australia.

Kamikawa apparently aimed to boost her presence through the article ahead of the Sept. 27 presidential election of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party to pick a successor to outgoing LDP President and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The Australian paper called Kamikawa “a contender in Japan’s prime ministerial race.”

“The peaceful and stable international environment faces serious threats, including unilateral attempts to change the status quo through the use of force and coercion,” she said in the article, apparently with China’s growing hegemonic moves in mind. “Amid the increasingly severe regional and global situation, it is natural that close friends Japan and Australia continue to deepen our security cooperation together with like-minded partners in the region.”

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]