Japan has not yet confirmed their participation in the defense cooperation meeting with the United States and Philippines next week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said.

Manalo said the Department of Foreign Affairs has not yet received any confirmation about the arrival of the representatives from Japan that are supposed to join the trilateral meeting in Manila next week.

"As for Japan, it’s not confirmed if they will be coming or not, but at this stage we haven’t received any confirmation," he said.

Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa was scheduled to fly to Manila from the US to join Blinken and Manalo but soirces said there were scheduling conflicts.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be arriving on the evening of March 19 and would hold a meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and other officials.

Blinken and Manalo will discuss the situation in the South China Sea where recently four Philippine Navy personnel on board a supply ship headed for Ayungin Shoal were injured after water cannon blasts from two Chinese Coast Guard ships shattered windshields.

The DFA summoned the Chinese Embassy's deputy ambassador to present a strongly worded protest.

In an interview with reporters last Wednesday, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. said he will be pushing for the interoperability among participants of the Philippines-United States-Japan defense cooperation during his meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 19, 2024.

"It is probably just formalizing what we are already doing, which will put a bit more structure to what we will do as a...interoperability and the actual joint cruises that we are having," Marcos said. DMS