Next ASEAN summit in Phuket
Asian leaders were reassured by the Thailand government that the next ASEAN summit to be held in Phuket next month would not end in chaos as an earlier meeting did in April.
The summit was abruptly cancelled last month after anti-government carried out huge demonstrations at the venue in the coastal city of Pattaya. Abhisit Vejjajiva has said that the summit would be rescheduled in June to continue the dialogue to address the issue of global economic slump and its impact on ASEAN region.
Suthep, the deputy Prime Minister who is in charge of the security has said that the government is taking stringent steps to ensure that the next summit would be held peacefully without any issue. He further added that Ministry of Defence has been assigned the responsibility of guaranteeing the security of the ASEAN leaders and diplomats.
The military would be fully responsible for the security of the ASEAN leaders and Asia-Pacific dialogue partners where as the Police would supplement the efforts of the army.
Representatives of ASEAN countries, India, China, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Japan were invited by the Thailand foreign ministry for consultation over the meeting date and security arrangements.
It’s not that easy to fix the meeting date with various countries being busy to get through their annual budgets.