Last week senior representatives of over twenty intelligence agencies from all over the world, including United States e China, attended a secret meeting at Singapore. The meeting would have taken place on the sidelines of the works of the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security conference held annually in Singapore. The conference, focusing on security issues in the Asia-Pacific region, has been organized since 2002 by theInternational Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank.
Al Shangri-La Dialogue i usually participate defense ministers of major Western powers and regional Asian powers, along with security and intelligence representatives from participating nations. However, a separate closed meeting of intelligence officials had never been organized in previous editions. The press agency unveiled the 007 summit Reuters who, citing five different sources, said that the meeting took place between 2 and 4 June.
According to Reuters, the meeting was organized in great secrecy by the Singapore government and was held in a separate location from that of the regional security summit. According to Reuters sources, this type of meeting has been held every year for several years: however, it had never been disclosed previously.
About two dozen major intelligence agencies from countries such as the United States, China and India were reported to have attended the secret meeting. The US intelligence community was represented by Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence.
Reuters did not mention the presence of the Russian intelligence community at the summit.
A spokesman for Singapore's defense ministry said participants in the Shangri-La Dialogue include “senior intelligence agency officials”, that “they also took the opportunity to meet their counterparts”. The spokesman added that Singapore's defense ministry "facilitates some of these bilateral or multilateral meetings," because "participants find such meetings held on the sidelines of the main event advantageous."
The governments of the United States, China and India did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
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