Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha will point to the importance of the military in maintaining security during his speech today at the 15th Asia Security Summit in Singapore.

Government Deputy Spokesperson Maj-General Werachon Sukondhapatipak said Prayut would stress the military’s role and development as the key factors promoting security. He will also speak about Thailand’s willingness to contribute to security in the Asia-Pacific at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)-hosted event, Werachon said.

He said Prayut‘s speech would cover regional and global security issues and their impacts on the region, including threats to Asean such as extremism, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and irregular migration.

Prayut said on Tuesday that his 30-minute speech would also cover poverty, inequality and human-trafficking issues. He will seek Asean’s cooperation in these areas through existing regional mechanisms. “I will have to be careful that my words won’t cause any further problems,” Prayutsaid.

Werachon said that Prayut would be the first Thai leader to speak at the summit, also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, after being invited to do so by his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, and IISS.

Lee, last year’s keynote speaker at the event, will host a tea banquet to Prayut prior to the summit.Prayut is not expected to hold significant talks with Lee – except thank him for the invitation and discuss a date for their leaders’ retreat.

Werachon said a longer meeting was not necessary because the two leaders had met in Sochi during the Asean-Russia Commemorative Summit two weeks ago.

Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, Interior Minsiter General Anupong Paochinda and the National Security Council secretary-general General Thawip Netniyom will also attend the summit.

Lee and his deputy Teo Chee Hean, who met with Prayut on Monday for talks on anti-terrorism, will be present at the summit, which runs from today to Sunday.

The US defence secretary and the defence ministers of Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam will be at the summit, according to the IISS Asia executive director Tim Huxley.

China’s People’s Liberation Army will send a delegation to speak about the South China Sea, one of the summit’s key issues other than growing tension on the Korean peninsula.

The IISS has organised the summit with the support of the Singaporean Defence Ministry.