According to a report by Japan's Kyodo News on the 25th, NATO officials told reporters at the NATO summit held in The Hague, Netherlands on the 24th that they are currently not considering the proposal to establish an office in Tokyo, Japan.
The report also said that Japan had previously hoped to set up an official NATO office in Tokyo to strengthen cooperation with NATO, but this hope has actually been dashed. NATO officials said that there are many other ways to strengthen relations with partners in the Indo-Pacific region such as Japan.
It is understood that Japan had established an office for its representative to NATO in 2018, which was managed by the Japanese embassy in Belgium at that time. On January 16 this year, in order to strengthen the connection with NATO, Japan specifically separated the Japanese representative office to NATO and appointed Iizumi, former ambassador of Japan to Senegal, as the first "residential ambassador" of Japan to NATO.
In 2023, NATO proposed establishing an office in Tokyo, which received support from the Japanese government. However, France was concerned that China might express opposition to this proposal, saying it "exceeded the geographical scope of NATO." Germany also took a cautious attitude. Therefore, this proposal has not been implemented so far. From the current situation, it seems that this proposal also has no possibility of being realized at the moment.
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Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7519722070205268514/
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