Arab News Japan

TOKYO: From October 23 to November 5, Japan and the United States will carry out the second joint operation for foreign coast guards following the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the JCG and the USCG on May 18, 2022.

The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) will dispatch five members of its Mobile Cooperation Team (MCT), a special team that provides foreign coast guard agencies with technical support on maritime safety and security, to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) as part of this operation.

During this deployment, the JCG MCT is going to conduct drills on towing and on-board boat launching using 97-meter patrol vessels provided by Japan, and arresting techniques training. The USCG is going to provide training courses on boarding and damage control.

The USCG and JCG have been engaging in capacity-building support for foreign coast guard agencies in the Indo-Pacific region.

The US-Japan joint engagements are referred to as ‘SAPPHIRE’, and those to be implemented in 2022 are described as ‘SAPPHIRE22’.