The Ministry of National Defense said on the 28th that Minister Ahn Gyu-baek will attend the 23rd Asia Security Summit to be held in Singapore from the 29th to the 31st.
The Asia Security Summit is a conference hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in the United Kingdom and has been held annually in Singapore since 2002. Defense ministers and senior military officials from Asia and Europe attend. It is also called the "Shangri-La Dialogue" after the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, the host venue.
In particular, Minister Ahn is set to hold a bilateral meeting with Japan's Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi. A face-to-face meeting between the two defense chiefs is the first since the Korea-Japan defense ministers' talks held in January, when Minister Ahn visited Japan. It is expected that plans to expand exchanges between the two countries' defense authorities, which have recently become more active, will be discussed.
U.S. Defense (War) Minister Pete Hegseth will also attend the meeting. However, a separate bilateral meeting between the Korean and U.S. defense ministers is considered unlikely, as such talks were already held on the 11th this month (local time) during Minister Ahn's visit to the United States, and are therefore unlikely to be convened again on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue.
During the meeting, Minister Ahn plans to hold talks with delegations from the U.S. House and Senate and with the defense ministers of major countries including Japan, Australia, Norway, the Philippines and Thailand, and to discuss ways to expand defense and defense industry cooperation.
On the 30th, Minister Ahn is scheduled to deliver a speech in the plenary session on the theme of "Regional security challenges and Korea's strategic response."