Japan is in talks to open a NATO liaison office, the first of its kind in Asia.
This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan Yoshimasa Hayashi in an interview CNN.
"We are already conducting negotiations, but no details have been agreed yet," the minister said.
The head of the Foreign Ministry particularly noted Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year as an event with consequences far beyond the borders of Europe, which forced Japan to rethink regional security.
"The reason we are discussing this is that the world has become more unstable since Russia's aggression in Ukraine. What is happening in Eastern Europe is not limited to Eastern Europe, and it directly affects the situation here in the Pacific. That is why cooperation between us in East Asia and NATO is becoming more and more important," the minister said.
He added that Japan is not a treaty member of NATO, which stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but the move sends a signal that the bloc's Asia-Pacific partners are "engaging with NATO in a very stable way."
The opening of a NATO liaison office in Japan would be a major step for the Western alliance amid deepening geopolitical rifts and is likely to draw criticism from the Chinese government, which has previously warned against such a move.
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