US Defense Secretary to travel to Singapore, Cambodia, France next week

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will depart next week for a trip to Singapore, Cambodia and France, a Pentagon press release said on Friday. As part of his tenth official visit to the Indo-Pacific region, Secretary Austin will deliver plenary remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. While there, he is slated to meet with Singapore's new Prime Minister and other senior Singaporean officials, convene a multilateral meeting of his counterparts from Southeast Asia, and participate in a Trilateral Ministerial Meeting (TMM) with his counterparts from Japan and the Republic of Korea. He is also planning to meet bilaterally with other counterparts from across the Indo-Pacific region and with Admiral Dong Jun, Minister of National Defense of the People's Republic of China (PRC), following their April 16 discussion via video teleconference. While in Cambodia, the Secretary will meet with senior officials following his November 2022 visit to Phnom Penh for the ASEAN Defense Minister's Meeting-Plus (ADMM- Plus), according to the statement. Secretary Austin's tenth trip to the Indo-Pacific comes as the Department of Defense continues to strengthen US relationships with allies and partners in support of a shared regional vision for peace, stability, and deterrence. Secretary Austin will conclude his trip in France, where he will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day by participating in several commemorative events. The Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) is a "Track One" inter-governmental security conference held annually in Singapore by an independent think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The dialogue is commonly attended by defence ministers, permanent heads of ministries and military chiefs of mostly Asia-Pacific states. The forum's name is derived from the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, where it has been held since 2002. Besides the host nation, countries that have participated in the dialogue have included Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, In donesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. Source: Kuwait News Agency