PM Lee to attend ASEAN summits held via videoconference

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will attend the thirty eighth and thirty ninth Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summits and associated summits from Oct 26 to 28, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) stated on Monday (Oct 25). 

Mr Lee will lead the Singapore delegation on the summits, which will likely be held via video convention.

The conferences will see leaders focus on how ASEAN, along with its exterior companions and the worldwide group, can proceed to work in direction of constructing more resilient public well being methods, provide chains and economies that may "emerge stronger from the COVID-19 pandemic and (be) better prepared for future crises". 

This is consistent with Brunei's ASEAN Chairmanship theme of "We Care, We Prepare, We Prosper", stated PMO in a press assertion. 

The leaders may even trade views on regional and worldwide developments, efforts to strengthen regional cooperation, reinforce ASEAN centrality, in addition to peace and stability. 

Additionally, the leaders may even meet with their counterparts in the course of the twenty fourth ASEAN Plus Three Summit and the sixteenth East Asia Summit. 

They may even meet with their counterparts in summits with Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. 

Min Aung Hlaing, the chief of Myanmar's army junta, is anticipated to be absent from the ASEAN summits, after a choice made by the bloc's international ministers to invite a "non-political representative" from the nation as a substitute. 

The resolution was made on the Emergency ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting on Oct 15, which was known as to deal with the failure of Myanmar's junta to adhere to a peace roadmap it had agreed to with ASEAN in April. 

Singapore supported the choice reached by the ministers, stated the nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a separate assertion on Oct 16. 

However, the Myanmar junta has refused to agree to ship a politically impartial consultant as a substitute of Min Aung Hlaing, stated Reuters.