COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka on Thursday highlighted plans to supply unmanned aerial vehicles to the Sri Lanka Navy and a new exchange programme for military personnel. Both are part of a security relationship that Tokyo has widened over the past year.
The ambassador, Akio Isomata, described the initiatives at a reception the Japanese Embassy in Colombo held for the 72nd anniversary of the founding of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Guests included Sri Lanka’s deputy defence minister, Aruna Jayasekera, a retired major general; the defence secretary, Sampath Thuyacontha, a retired air vice marshal; and other senior officials.
The drones are Sri Lanka’s first project under Japan’s Official Security Assistance programme. Tokyo created this grant scheme in 2023 to give equipment directly to partner countries’ armed forces, and it runs separately from Japan’s development aid. The two governments exchanged notes on the ¥500 million grant, about 1 billion Sri Lankan rupees, on Sept. 29, 2025, during President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s official visit to Tokyo. The Japanese Embassy said at the time that the navy would receive two types of Japanese-made drones for monitoring, surveillance and disaster relief.
On Thursday the embassy said the aircraft would strengthen the navy’s maritime surveillance and disaster response. It did not say how many drones would be delivered, which models had been chosen or when they would arrive.
Mr. Isomata also pointed to a military personnel exchange programme set up under a memorandum of understanding signed in June between the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, a private Japanese foundation, and Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence. The embassy said the programme would support professional exchanges and skills development. It did not say how many people would take part or what activities were planned.
In a video message played at the reception, Japan’s defence minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, said Tokyo was committed to building trust and cooperation with Sri Lanka and other international partners.
Mr. Isomata placed the cooperation within Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, which emphasises maritime security and freedom of navigation. He said the international security environment had grown more complex. Countries therefore needed to strengthen their economic, social and security resilience so they could make independent decisions about their future.
Sri Lanka lies close to the main shipping lanes across the Indian Ocean that connect East Asia with the Middle East and Europe. Successive governments in Colombo have tried to balance relations with India, China, Japan and the United States, all of which have sought closer ties with the island.
Mr. Isomata said Japan had followed a peaceful course since the end of World War II and still treated its “exclusively defence-oriented policy” as a core principle of its security approach. Japan founded the Self-Defense Forces in 1954. Its postwar Constitution renounces war as a sovereign right, but the country keeps substantial military forces and in recent years has expanded security cooperation with regional partners.
