Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will pay an official visit to Japan for the second India-Japan 2+2 Ministerial Meeting, starting tomorrow (Wednesday).

During the visit, both the Ministers will also hold the Defence Ministerial Meeting and Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue with their counterparts, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

Rajnath Singh will meet his Japanese counterpart Yasukazu Hamada, while Jaishankar will meet Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi during the visit (September 7-10).

India -Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership is based on shared values of democracy, freedom and respect for the rule of law. During the visit, India and Japan will further explore new initiatives to strengthen the partnership.

India-Japan 2+2 will be the second such meeting between the two countries as the inaugural meeting of the India-Japan Foreign and Defence Ministerial Dialogue (2+2) was held on November 30, 2019, in New Delhi.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met then Foreign Affairs Minister of Japan Motegi Toshimitsu and then Defense Minister of Japan Kono Taro, on November 30, 2019, in New Delhi for the first India-Japan 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting.

The ministers had affirmed that this dialogue will further enhance the strategic depth of bilateral security and defence cooperation. Acknowledging emerging security challenges, the Ministers reiterated their commitment to advancing bilateral security cooperation based on the 2008 Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation and the 2009 Action Plan to advance Security Cooperation.

Notably, the India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue was held between Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin on April 11 in Washington.

During the India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, the defence and foreign ministers of the two countries forged new and deeper cooperation across the breadth of the US-India partnership, including defence, science and technology, trade, climate, public health, and people-to-people ties.