Washington: The U.S. government welcomes Japan’s decision to export Patriot surface-to-air guided missiles to the United States to replenish U.S. inventories, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement on Friday.

“This decision will contribute to the security of Japan and to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region by ensuring that U.S. forces, in close cooperation with the Japan Self-Defense Forces, will continue to maintain a credible deterrence and response capability,” Sullivan said.

He also said, “President (Joe) Biden strongly appreciates and supports the leadership role played by Japan under Prime Minister (Fumio) Kishida.”

On Friday, the Japanese government revised the country’s Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology and the Implementation Guidelines for the principles, lifting its ban on exports of arms and ammunition manufactured under license from foreign companies to their countries, and conditionally to third countries.

For the first such shipments, Tokyo decided to export PAC-2 and PAC-3 surface-to-air guided missiles to the United States, as requested by the U.S. side.

JIJI Press