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REUTERS/Ciro De Luca Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence John Healey, Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani, Italy’s Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, Canada’s Minister of National Defence Bill Blair, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and pose for a photo during the G7 Defence Ministers meeting in Naples, Italy October 19, 2024.
Jiji Press
12:53 JST, October 20, 2024
Tokyo (Jiji Press)—The Group of Seven major powers have expressed concern about China’s recent massive military drills around Taiwan in their first defense ministers’ meeting, held in Naples, Italy.
In a statement issued after the meeting Saturday, the G-7 ministers said, “We are concerned about provocative actions,” referring to the Chinese drills around Taiwan, conducted Monday.
“We reaffirm that maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to international security and prosperity,” the statement said.
After expressing their “serious concern” about the situation in the East and South China seas, the ministers also said they are “strongly opposed to China’s repeated obstruction of freedom of navigation, militarization of disputed features and coercive and intimidating activities.”
The officials of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States plus the European Union confirmed their intention to expand G-7 participation in regional exercises and deepen operational cooperation to stabilize the Indo-Pacific region.
They also agreed to work together to strengthen the foundation of defense production.
On Ukraine, the statement underlined the G-7 support for the war-torn country’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”
The ministers condemned the “increasing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia,” bearing in mind Pyongyang’s reported plans to deploy troops to Ukraine via Russia.
They called on Iran to stop supporting the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, fearing a further deterioration of the situation in Lebanon, where Israel continues its military attacks.
According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani called for cooperation among allies and like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific region and stressed the need to maintain and strengthen a free and open international order based on the rule of law.
The G-7 forum held its first summit among then six member countries in 1975 in response to the first oil crisis.
While ministerial meetings had been held on a wide range of issues such as economy, finance, diplomacy and health, the Naples meeting was the first G-7 talks focusing on defense. Italy, this year’s G-7 president, proposed holding the defense ministers’ meeting in response to the deteriorating global situation.
