Singapore Security Turns Away Extremists, Deports Reporters Ahead Of Historic Summit
Singapore has stepped up security for this week’s summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and has already booted reporters for trespassing.
About 5,000 police officers and first responders will be deployed, said Interior minister K. Shanmugam, according to the South China Morning Post. Overall, security is expected to cost Singapore about $20 million.
As a show of its intent to provide security for the summit, Singapore deported two South Korean journalists who were accused of trespassing in the home of North Korea’s ambassador to Singapore.
“I think it’s a bad idea in any country to break into ambassadors’ residences. No different in Singapore. Case closed. They have been asked to leave,” Shanmugam said, according to the Associated Press.
According to AP, another individual authorities identified as “someone from a regional country” was turned away after visiting websites about making bombs.
Australian Zaky Mallah, once tried on terrorism charges, was also barred from entering Singapore.
Experts said Singapore is up to the security challenge the summit represents.
“It’s not a surprising choice, really,” said Graham Ong-Webb, a research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, according to NBC. “It’s a very safe and secure country, we have an immense amount of security infrastructure in place. Singapore has been a very competent event organizer.”
Whem Kim and Trump meet, it will be at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island. That adds an extra layer of security, said Tim Bradley, senior consultant from Florida-based security company the Incident Management Group.
“They did absolutely the best thing, and that is to isolate this and put it on this resort, where they can control the access to it. You don’t want a security failure to be the story that comes out of this,” Bradley said.
“Think about threats: there are two broad categories, the internal threats and the external threats. Being in an island like that where you can control access like that, the external threats are diminished tremendously.”
Both leaders arrived in Singapore on Sunday, local time.
Kim arrived in a Chinese jet normally reserved for the use of China’s president, the BBC reported. He was formally greeted and soon whisked away to his hotel.
Kim Jong Un’s motorcade rolls through the shut down streets of Singapore. Look closely and you can see his security guards running alongside the limo. pic.twitter.com/3YyQDDraUi
— Arden Farhi (@ArdenFarhi) June 10, 2018
As reported by Fox News, Kim had an extra layer of security with him in the form of a contingent of security guards, all dressed in black suits, jogging alongside a black vehicle which carried Kim.
WATCH: US President Donald Trump arrives in Singapore for the #TrumpKimSummit in the Air Force One that touched down at Paya Lebar Airbase just moments ago https://t.co/p9IkHyhAHC pic.twitter.com/3cvWq05dkc
— CNA (@ChannelNewsAsia) June 10, 2018
Trump arrived later in the day, having come from the G-7 meeting of seven top industrialized nations in Canada. Trump told waiting reporters he felt “very good” about the upcoming summit before he was taken form the airport to his hotel.
The leaders are staying about a half mile apart.
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