Takashi Saito, chief of staff of the Japanese Defense Ministry's Joint Staff Office, will attend a two-day international conference on security in Asia to be held in Singapore from Saturday, it was learned Monday.
Adm. Saito will be the first top Japanese uniformed officer to participate in the annual meeting, sponsored by Britain's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Takashi Saito, chief of staff of the Japanese Defense Ministry's Joint Staff Office, will attend a two-day international conference on security in Asia to be held in Singapore from Saturday, it was learned Monday.
Adm. Saito will be the first top Japanese uniformed officer to participate in the annual meeting, sponsored by Britain's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The conference, dubbed Shangri-La Dialogue, brings together defense ministers and top military officers primarily from the Asia-Pacific region. It has been held every year since its launch in 2002.
In talks with participants from other countries, Saito hopes to explain the Japanese Self-Defense Forces' disaster-relief and other operations overseas, informed sources said.
Saito's post was created in an organizational reform in March last year to unify the chain of command and order for the Ground, Maritime and Air SDFs.
