UK Minister of State for Defense Annabel Goldie is visiting the Philippines for the first time as she seeks to strengthen ties between the two countries with the shared commitment to regional peace and security.
Goldie, a Scottish life peer, is the first high-ranking UK defense official to visit Manila in many years. She has held meetings with the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines headquarters to discuss UK’s Indo-Pacific strategy and the importance of maritime security and upholding maritime law, the British government said in a statement.
Both sides have yet to release details of the meetings.
According to the posts of the British Embassy in Manila on X (formerly Twitter), Goldie also visited the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Coast Guard, where she welcomed more opportunities to collaborate on UK-Philippine maritime priorities.
Royal Navy’s offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey is currently in the Philippines for the Exercise Sama Sama, a Philippine-US maritime drill that has expanded into a multilateral exercise that also includes Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Indonesia and New Zealand.
Goldie is scheduled to attend the closing ceremony of Sama Sama.
“I look forward to visiting Exercise Sama Sama, and discussing how the UK and the Philippines can deepen our defense cooperation as part of our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Goldie was quoted as saying.
HMS Spey, one of the greenest ships in the Royal Navy, is part of a five-year operation to the Indo-Pacific region alongside her sister ship HMS Tamar, according to the British government.
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The deployment is part of the UK’s contribution to maintaining freedom of navigation in the region amid Chinese assertiveness over its territorial ambitions.