Japan and Italy agreed Sunday to strengthen security and defense ties, eyeing early enforcement of a bilateral pact signed last month enabling the two countries to exchange intelligence, the Foreign Ministry said.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his Italian counterpart, Paolo Gentiloni, who met ahead of the Group of Seven foreign ministers' meeting that started Sunday in the city of Hiroshima, also agreed to cooperate to make the two-day talks a success, it said.
Italy will assume the presidency of the G-7, which groups Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Japan and the United States, next year.
The two ministers also confirmed that the Hiroshima meeting will cover regional issues including North Korea, China, Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East, in addition to global issues such as counterterrorism measures, nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, and maritime security, the ministry said.
With regard to Ukraine, they also agreed on the need for all related parties to fully implement a cease-fire agreement struck in February last year. While the G-7 countries have imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea region in March 2014, the two ministers said that maintaining dialogue with Russia is important, according to the ministry.
Russia was suspended from the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, or G-8, in 2014 in retaliation for the annexation.