PM to deliver speech on regional security in Singapore

BANGKOK, June 3 (TNA) -- Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha left for Singapore at Wing 6 in Bangkok on June 3 to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue 15th Asia Security Summit and will share his views on regional security issues and global situations there. His delegation included the ministers of foreign affairs and interior and the secretary-general of the National Security Council. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong invited Gen Prayut to share his perspectives in the summit and he is the first Thai leader to attend the only security forum in the region. Gen Prayut would share his views on challenges to security in Asia and the Pacific and ways to create strategic balance in the region. He would also address regional security issues, global situations with regional impacts, common problems of ASEAN members including extremism, illegal fishing and irregular migration, and Thai solutions. Participants in the summit included heads of governments, defence ministers, senior security officials and academics of Asia and the Pacific and Europe. Defence ministers of Canada, France, Italy, Japan, India and the United States were also there. About 500 attendees were expected from more than 20 countries. The Singaporean Ministry of Defence and the International Institute for Strategic Studies of the United Kingdom initiated the summit in 2002 after the 9/11 incident. It has been a forum for defence authorities in Asia and the Pacific to freely express their views on security issues and subjects of common interest. There is not a joint communiqué, commitment or obligation from the summit. (TNA)