By Robina Asido

Philippine and Japan defense officials agreed to further strengthen collaboration to address maritime security challenges in the East China Sea and South China Sea.

"Both sides also shared the same view that freedom of navigation and overflight, peaceful resolution of disputes, as well as respect for international law should always be upheld in the said areas," said Arsenio Andolong, Defense Communications Service Chief, said Friday.

"The same view was also held by the two ministers regarding the situation in the Taiwan strait," he added.

Andolong said the maritime situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea were just among the topics that were discussed by Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and Minister Nobuo Kishi in Tokyo on Thursday.

Their meeting was held ahead of the inaugural Philippines-Japan Foreign and Defense MInisterial Meeting.

Andolong said this is the first time that both ministers have met in person after they two virtual meetings due to restrictions of the pandemic.

He said during the meeting Lorenzana highlighted the Philippine position with regard to the situation in Ukraine and reiterated calls on all parties to resort to the 1982 Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement on International Disputes.

Also discussed by the two defense officials is the situation in the Korean Peninsula, where they both called for the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.

"With regard to Myanmar, Secretary Lorenzana and Minister Kishi highlighted the importance of the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus," said Andolong.

"Both sides noted the increase in defense cooperation activities between Philippines and Japan despite the pandemic. Notably, the two Ministers agreed on the need to explore other frameworks of cooperation that would further expand defense relations between the two countries," he said.

"On multilateral cooperation, the two Ministers concurred on the significance of continuous cooperation under the ambit of the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting (ADMM)-Plus as well as other ASEAN dialogue platforms and the need to maintain ASEAN centrality. Both officials also discussed other prospects for trilateral cooperation with like-minded nations," he added.

Andolong said the meeting of the two defense officials "ended with a strong sense of commitment to further expand overall bilateral Defense cooperation between Philippines and Japan to include defense industry and logistics cooperation." DMS