MANILA (AFP) – The Philippines and Germany have agreed to deepen military cooperation, their defence ministers said yesterday.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and his Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro met in Manila and pledged to sign a defence cooperation agreement by the end of the year.
Teodoro said the agreement would focus on “mutual understanding regarding capabilities, training (and) exchange of information”.
“We collaborate because we have a shared vision of respect for the United Nations Charter… and our desire to see a stable and peaceful Indo-Pacific,” Teodoro told a joint news conference with Pistorius in the Philippine capital.
They vowed to build “long-lasting relations” between their armed forces and flagged the possibility of Germany supplying military equipment to the Philippines.
Pistorius is the first German defence minister to visit the Philippines. Germany is one of the Philippines’ oldest formal defence partners through a 1974 administrative agreement that includes the training of Filipino troops in Germany.
Pistorius said security and stability between their respective regions were interconnected and hoped the agreement would be signed “before the end of the year, maybe already in October”.
