Estonia and Japan to intensify cyber cooperation

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Defence Mikk Mar­ran, on a vis­it to Japan, met with Japan’s Vice Min­is­ter of Defence Hironori Kanaza­wa and oth­er senior offi­cials from the Min­istries of Defence and For­eign Affairs in Tokyo.

This is the first high-lev­el vis­it by the Eston­ian Min­istry of Defence to its coun­ter­parts in Japan. 

At the meet­ings, col­lab­o­ra­tion on cyber defence and issues relat­ed to the future of Afghanistan were dis­cussed, and more fre­quent con­sul­ta­tions on defence were agreed. 

It was also decid­ed at the meet­ing that col­lab­o­ra­tion on cyber defence should be deep­ened, and Esto­nia invit­ed Japan to con­tribute to the work of NATO’s Cyber Defence Cen­tre in Tallinn and to take part in cyber defence exercises. 

Accord­ing to Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Mar­ran, Japan is one of NATO’s eight glob­al part­ners with a sig­nif­i­cant role in both their own region and the world at large. “The struc­ture of the Eston­ian and Japan­ese agen­cies involved in cyber defence is very sim­i­lar; how­ev­er, con­tacts between Eston­ian and Japan­ese cyber spe­cial­ists to date have been few. We also dis­cussed the polit­i­cal and legal aspects of cyber defence at var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions,” Mar­ran said. 

In addi­tion, issues relat­ed to the future of Afghanistan were addressed, with a dis­cus­sion of the con­fer­ence to be held in Tokyo this sum­mer for the pur­pose of iden­ti­fy­ing resources to fund major devel­op­ment projects in Afghanistan. 

The vis­it also includ­ed meet­ings with Tet­suro Fukuya­ma, Chair­man of the Com­mit­tee of For­eign Affairs and Defence in the upper house of the Nation­al Diet of Japan, and Taro Kono, for­mer Chair­man of the Com­mit­tee of For­eign Affairs in the low­er house of the Diet. 

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion:
Peeter Kuimet
MoD Esto­nia Press Offi­cer
Tel +372 717 0116 / +372 56 56 41 88
peeter.kuimet@kaitseministeerium.ee

Source:
Eston­ian Min­istry of Defence