The Governments of the Maldives and Japan have held discussions on enhancing defence and security cooperation between the two countries. The discussions were held between Minister of Defence of the Maldives Mariya Ahmed Didi and the Ambassador of Japan to the Maldives Takeuchi Midori during a meeting held on March 1.
During the meeting, Minister Mariya welcomed the new Japanese ambassador to the Maldives and highlighted the warm, sisterly relationship between Japan and the Maldives, over the past 5-and-a-half decades. Minister Mariya thanked the government and friendly people of Japan for the longstanding tradition of assistance extended to the Maldives, in multiple avenues of socio-economic development over the past decades.
Minister Mariya noted the remarkable growth in civil defence and security sector cooperation between the two countries over the past 3 years, and thanked Japan for the generous donation of equipment and provision of training opportunities to the Maldivian defence sector. The minister stated that she was looking forward to continuing this excellent tradition of cooperation with Japan.
Discussions focused on furthering cooperation in the areas of disaster response, pollution response, counter-terrorism, maritime security and aviation security. Ambassador Midori expressed Japan’s commitment to furthering the tradition of cooperation between Japan and Maldives, as the two countries mark their 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year.
The defence minister was joined by Military Secretary BG Abdul Matheen Ahmed, Principal Director of Department of International Defence Cooperation LTC Ahmed Shareef and LTC Hassan Bushry.