Minister of Defence addresses Asia’s premier Defence Summit

Defence Minister Ron Mark has called for stronger and more meaningful security relationships at Asia’s premier defence summit, the 18th Annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, this weekend.

He addressed the 2019 summit during the final plenary session on Sunday 2 June, on the topic ‘Ensuring a Resilient and Stable Region’, where he outlined New Zealand’s perspective on defence and security matters, and the challenges facing our Pacific region, including the security implications of the climate crisis.

“With pressure on the international rules based order, the opportunity presented by the Shangri-La Dialogue to come together, consider global security challenges, understand individual motivations, forge genuine people-to-people links, and strengthen our contemporary security architecture is of increasing importance,” says Ron Mark.

While in Singapore Minister Mark held bilateral meetings with several counterparts including Australia, China, Canada, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Timor Leste, the United Kingdom and Viet Nam, in addition to the European Union, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and NATO.

His address to the summit can be found here:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech-18th-shangri-la-dialogue-ensuring-resilient-and-stable-region

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