As negotiations on a Japan-Canada intelligence-sharing pact progress, the strategic partners are also examining other ways to ramp up defense and security cooperation, including in the fields of space, cybersecurity, industry and special forces operations, Canada's defense minister said Friday.

“I think there are unlimited areas of cooperation between Canada and Japan,” Defense Minister Bill Blair said in Tokyo.

Blair, who is the first Canadian defense minister to visit Japan in five years, emphasized that working together with a “priority partner” like Tokyo can “only make us stronger amid shared concerns about the volatile international security environment.”