Japan, Britain and Italy are planning to hold a defense ministerial meeting in Tokyo next month, sources close to the matter said Monday, in which their plan for joint development of a next-generation fighter jet is expected to be discussed.
Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and his British and Italian counterparts, Ben Wallace and Guido Crosetto, are also likely to discuss cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, where China has been intensifying military activities, the sources said.
In December last year, the three countries' leaders agreed to jointly develop a state-of-the-art warplane by around 2035, as the global security environment has become more severe due largely to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.