- What was said at the press conference between Kamala Harris and Prime Minister Lee
- Why Singapore is helping the U.S with evacuation flights
Singapore is offering the United States the use of the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) tanker aircraft for evacuation efforts in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsein Loong offered the aircraft to Vice President Kamala Harris at a joint press conference held at Istana. Lee noted that Singapore participated in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and “we were later the first Southeast Asian country to contribute personnel and assets to the global coalition to defeat ISIS, which was in Iraq”. Lee then said that the US is a partner of Singapore newly-established counterterrorism information facility.
During the press conference, Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong said ““On Afghanistan specifically, I mentioned to vice president that we knew that the US was conducting an evacuation operation of refugees from Afghanistan; and Singapore would like to offer to the US the use of the RSAF’s Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport in order to help with the airlift.” Harris said that right now the country is singularly focused on evacuating its own citizens from Afghanistan, as well as Afghans who worked with the US and who are vulnerable, including women and children. The US has been scrambling to evacuate Americans and Afghans from the country since the Taliban entered the capital Kabul on Aug 15.
