Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday agreed to begin talks to ink a proposed reciprocal access agreement to facilitate mutual visits by Japanese Self-Defense Forces and French military members.

The recent crash of two Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopters during night training off a remote Tokyo island is highly likely to have been caused by human factors, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development kicked off a two-day ministerial council meeting at its headquarters in Paris on Thursday, under the chairmanship of Japan, which is marking the 60th anniversary of its accession to the OECD in 1964.