Singapore and Australia Co-Chair the 4th Experts' Working Group on Counter-Terrorism Meeting

Permanent Secretary for Defence Mr Chan Yeng Kit officiated at the opening ceremony of the 4th meeting of the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting (ADMM)-Plus Experts' Working Group on Counter-Terrorism (EWG-CT) earlier today. The meeting, co-chaired by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Chief Commando Officer/ Commander Special Operations Task Force Colonel (COL) Simon Lim and Australian Defence Force Deputy Special Operations Commander Colonel (COL) Richard Campbell, is held from 13 to 14 October 2014 in Singapore. This is the first time that Singapore and Australia are co-chairing the EWG-CT, having taken over the co-chairmanship from Indonesia and the United States in April 2014. Singapore and Australia will co-chair the EWG-CT until April 2017.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mr Chan highlighted the significance of the EWG-CT in enhancing practical cooperation among the 18 ADMM-Plus countries - namely the ten ASEAN countries, Australia, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States. He said, "Practical cooperation builds trust and confidence amongst our militaries and lays foundation for the ADMM-Plus to make further progress in addressing security challenges of common concern... The EWGs will continue to form an important pillar of the ADMM-Plus and lead the way in practical cooperation." Mr Chan also underscored the usefulness of the EWG-CT as a platform to "exchange views and share best practices and lessons learnt, which will enhance our region's capacity to respond to emerging terrorist threats."Over the next two days, senior defence policy and military officials will exchange views on emerging regional and global terrorist threats, and deepen their understanding on counter-terrorism response architectures within respective ADMM-Plus countries.

In view of the growing threat of maritime terrorism, the EWG-CT will also work closely with the EWG on Maritime Security (MS) to commence joint planning on a Counter-Terrorism/Maritime Security Exercise in 2016.

Counter-terrorism is one of the six areas for cooperation under the ADMM-Plus framework, which also includes humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, military medicine, maritime security, peace keeping operations and humanitarian mine action. Singapore had previously co-chaired the EWG on Military Medicine with Japan from 2011 to 2013.