Maritime ties between India, Japan to grow stronger

Visakhapatnam: The sixth edition of Japan India Maritime Exercise 2022 (JIMEX-22) hosted by the Indian Navy included fighter control aircraft for the first time.

Sharing this onboard INS Sahyadri on Wednesday, Commander Escort Flotilla Four Rear Admiral Hirata Toshiyuki expressed that over the years, India and Japan's relationship has grown deeper than before.

Leading the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) ships at the maritime exercise that started off with a sea phase from September 11, he said Japan would always look forward to working together anytime, anywhere with India.

Terming the friendship with the Indian Navy as special, Rear Admiral Hirata Toshiyuki mentioned that India and Japan are collaborating together with international communities for maritime order and security. "As maritime nations, both Japan and India are committed to maritime security in the Indo-Pacific Region. Through enhanced interoperability, both Indian Navy and JMSDF are certain to grow stronger in future as the maritime forces comprise highly capable professionals and adoptive to response to various challenges, showcasing high-end capabilities. And we continue to make further effort for a bright future over the region," he said.

With the focus on the air, surface and sub-surface domains, JIMEX-22 participation includes all dimensions of fighter aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft and submarines.

Explaining the mutual benefits derived from the multilateral exercise and how it helps the navies enhance interoperability, Flag Officer of Commanding Eastern Fleet Rear Admiral Sanjay Bhalla said, "In order to graduate to this level of enhanced interoperability, gradual steps have to be taken to make sure safety requirements are met to undertake the complex exercises that involves an element of risk as many of them require close manoeuvres."

Terming the joint exercise a significant move of engaging the militaries after the governments establish a certain degree of confidence and relationship, Rear Admiral Sanjay Bhalla said, "Each navy comes with their own set of practices and procedures and evolves over a period of time. During such exercises, we come across practices of the other navies and exchange best ones to adopt and the other navy too observes certain procedures we carry out and follow. Therefore, it is mutually beneficial whenever we carry out multilateral or bilateral exercises with any nation as there is always something to learn from one another."

With sea being a challenging medium, Rear Admiral Sanjay Bhalla said, "For the seafarers the challenges we face at sea are quite similar and it is only natural to collaborate in the rough seas. Although the exercise has been continuing since 2012, it did witness progress in the level of complexity and exercises being undertaken with each passing edition."

JIMEX-22 commenced on September 11. Started off with sea phase, the harbour phase started on Wednesday in Visakhapatnam, the exercise will culminate with sea phase II in the central Bay of Bengal.

Next, in November, Japan is hosting the International Fleet Review (IFR) at Yokosuka. Indian naval ships will participate in it which will be followed by the Malabar Exercise.