Philippines, France agree to ramp up defence ties

The Philippines and France agreed on Saturday to ramp up military ties, including possible negotiations to allow soldiers from each country into the other’s territory.

French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro signed a letter of intent in Manila to boost bilateral defence cooperation.

“We intend to take concrete steps to levelling up and making more comprehensive our defence cooperation,” Teodoro told a joint press conference. That included seeking authority from their leaders to negotiate a status of visiting forces agreement, he said.

The Philippines has such agreements with the United States and Australia, and recently initiated talks with Japan for a reciprocal access agreement.

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Neither Teodoro nor Lecornu provided a timeline for the start of talks on the visiting forces agreement.

It was part of the letter of intent signed by the pair to “raise the level of interaction and to consolidate their exchanges through practical cooperation”, a joint statement said.

Lecornu, the first French defence minister to make an official visit to the Philippines, said the French navy already had a “high number of operations and training in the region”.

“We are working on an agenda of strengthening our presence in the Indo-Pacific,” Lecornu said.

Lecornu’s visit is the first leg of his trip across the Indo-Pacific, with stops in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, as well as Malaysia.

France considers itself an Indo-Pacific power, with more than 7,000 troops stationed in overseas territories in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. It has 1.6 million citizens in the Asia-Pacific across seven overseas territories, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and an exclusive economic zone spanning 9 million sq km (3.5 million square miles).

The Philippines has been ramping up military ties with several countries in a bid to counter China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where the two countries have a longstanding maritime dispute.

Manila’s claims are backed by a 2016 international tribunal’s ruling which rejected China’s claims to almost all the South China Sea, where several other countries also assert claims.

The Philippines recently began joint patrols in the South China Sea waters with the United States and Australia.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse