Mongolian Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh concluded his visit to Japan on Thursday. Mr. U.Khurelsukh and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe issued a joint statement after their official talks to expand bilateral ties and cooperation.

U.Khurelsukh has been on an official visit to Japan from Dec. 12 to 14 at the invitation of Shinzo Abe. This is Khurelsukh’s fourth overseas trip since he took office in October 2017 during which time he has visited South Korea, USA in January and China.

The statement said that Mongolia and Japan have agreed to further strengthen the all-round strategic partnership between the two countries. They vowed to continue enhancing bilateral and multilateral cooperation to benefit the two countries and peoples, and work closely on expanding bilateral cooperation at regional and international levels.

Khurelsukh expressed his appreciation to Japan for its support and assistance to Mongolia’s social and economic development over the past years.

For his part, Abe expressed his appreciation to Mongolia for providing 100,000 U.S. dollars in humanitarian aid to Japan after downpours in July this year triggered massive flooding and hundreds of landslides in western Japan and claimed hundreds of lives.

The two leaders welcomed the successful conclusion of the ninth public-private consultative meeting between the two nations in Tokyo on Wednesday, and expressed their willingness to make more efforts to deepen bilateral economic, trade, and investment cooperation based on the mechanism of the consultative meeting.

In terms of security, the two Asian countries agreed to enhance bilateral defense cooperation to make more contributions to regional and world peace and stability. The Japanese side expressed its willingness to continue to actively participate in the annual multinational peacekeeping exercise, code-named Khaan Quest.

In addition, the Mongolian and Japanese leaders hailed the recent positive developments on the Korean Peninsula, describing them as an important step in resolving controversial issues in a peaceful way through negotiations.