Remarks With Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart SathirathaiSecretary Colin L. PowellMinistry of Foreign Affairs Bangkok, Thailand July 29, 2002
SECRETARY POWELL: I am very pleased to be paying my first visit to Thailand. We have had foreign relations with Thailand since 1833. We have fought side by side in war and now we are once again working with each other in the campaign against terrorism. I had the chance to express my thanks to the Foreign Minister for contributions that Thailand have been making toward the end of the year of a engineer unit that will be going to Afghanistan to help the Afghan people. I also noted to the Foreign Minister that I met with some American business leaders this morning who are very pleased with the opportunities that they have found here in Thailand to do business: good trading partners, good political partners and I just wanted to express my appreciation to the Foreign Minister and the Thai people for the warmth and (inaudible) of the procedures and I look forward to my meeting with the Prime Minister and their Majesties. FOREIGN MINISTER SURAKIART: The Secretary and I had a very fruitful discussion. We covered both regional and bilateral issues and will be working closely on the issue of the reconstruction of Afghanistan and the issue of the reconstruction engineers from Thailand who will be sent, and on the issue of eradication of narcotic drugs. And will be working closely between Thailand and the United States as well as ASEAN and the U.S. on the anti-terrorism issue. We are very pleased with the level of economic cooperation, the framework for economic cooperation that both of us signed last year, and has been implemented with satisfaction. So, we look forward to closer cooperation. We will work on this visit of Secretary Powell, which is his first time to Thailand to foster close relations between our two countries and oldest treaty ally in this part of the world, and may it continue to be so. Thank you. Released on July 29, 2002 |
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