Tuesday, 7 July 2009

Thailand to deploy forces to secure ASEAN ministerial meeting

People's Daily Online
http://english.people.com.cn

July 07, 2009

The Thai government is planning to deploy forces to secure a series of the ASEAN meetings scheduled for later this month, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said on Monday night.

The 42nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ministerial Meeting and the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum will be held at Thailand's southern resort island of Phuket on July 20 and July23, respectively.

Thailand currently chairs the ASEAN group, which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

About the security measures for the meetings, Kasit said that everything goes smoothly and security officials scheduled to be deployed on July 9, will cooperate with local authorities including Phuket provisional administration organization to provide security for ministers.

Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan will be in charge of security affairs for the meetings, he told the state-run TV, the NBT.

Commenting the ASEAN Summit and Related Summits, which was forced to be canceled at Thailand's eastern resort city of Pattya in April, Kasit denied that it is a failure but a matter of security failure.

The 14th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits was initially scheduled to be held on April 10-12 in a hotel in the Thai resort town of Pattaya next to Bangkok, but the Thai government announced the postponement of it on April 11 after anti-government red-shirted protesters stormed into the venue. The government has rescheduled a new summits at Phuket late October.

Source: Xinhua

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