Seoul, May 28 (IANS) South Korea’s Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back will travel to Singapore later this week to attend an annual security forum, his ministry said on Thursday, amid an increasingly volatile security landscape, highlighted by the Middle East conflict.
Ahn will attend the 23rd Asia Security Summit, also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, from Friday through Sunday, where he will be joined by his counterparts of key nations, including the United States, Japan and other European and Indo-Pacific partners, the ministry said in a release.
Ahn plans to deliver a speech to the plenary session, introducing “South Korea’s defence policy in light of responses to a rapidly changing security environment and related challenges,” it said.
On the sidelines of the gathering, Ahn will hold bilateral talks with his counterparts of Japan, Australia, Norway, the Philippines and Thailand to discuss mutual security issues and ways to expand defence cooperation.
Ahn also plans to meet with members of the US House and the Senate attending the forum, reports Yonhap news agency.
Launched in 2002, the Shangri-La Dialogue serves as a multilateral platform for top defence and military officials to discuss security situations in the Indo-Pacific and around the world, and efforts to promote cooperation in the region.
The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia’s premier annual defence and security summit, officially known as the IISS Asia Security Summit.
Hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore, it gathers defence ministers, military chiefs, and strategic experts from over 40 countries to discuss critical Indo-Pacific security challenges and forge defence agreements.
It is a unique “Track One” inter-governmental diplomatic summit that allows nations to engage in both open plenary debates and private, closed-door bilateral meetings to de-escalate regional tensions.
–IANS
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