Japanese warships on Mumbai visit

Mumbai: Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) ships Yuudachi and Yuugiri entered Mumbai Harbour today for a scheduled visit till tomorrow.

The ships are being lead by Captain Takashi Inoue, Commander Escort Division 7 of JMSDF and Commander Tomoya Bada and Commander Tomoyuki Sase are the Commanding Officers of JMSDFS Yuudachi and Yuugiri respectively, a defence spokesperson said.

Captain Takashi Inoue and Commanding Officers of JMSDF ships called on Vice Admiral R Hari Kumar, Chief of Staff, Headquarter Western Naval Command. Indian Navy personnel also visited the Japanese Naval ships and Japanese officers visited INS Kolkata.

On departure from Mumbai tomorrow evening, JMSDF ships will take part in a joint passage exercise 'PASSEX' with Indian Naval Ships Mysore and Brahmaputra off the Mumbai Harbour.

The JMSDF ships arrived at Mumbai Harbour from Duqm, Oman and were part of anti-piracy patrol in Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

Both ships are destroyer class vessels and are equipped with modern weapons such as surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, guns, torpedoes and electronic warfare suites, the spokesperson said in a statement here.

Indian Navy and JMSDF have long professional relationship with both navies participating in MALABAR and JIMEX (Japan India Maritime Exercise) series of exercises.

The last MALABAR exercise was recently held from June 10 to 17 in the Western Pacific Ocean was attended by IN Ships Sahyadri, Satpura, Shakti and Kirch. INS Sahyadri participated in International Fleet Review at Yokosuka, Japan in October 2015 which was reciprocated by JMSDFS Matsuyuki participating in International Fleet Review at Visakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh in February 2016.

Since 2014, eight Indian Naval ships have visited Japan and eight Japanese naval ships have visited India. India and Japan also have armed forces training exchange programme to enhance interoperability of the forces.

These exchanges at service level are also part of strong bilateral relationship between the two countries, the spokesperson said.