Singapore-New Zealand relationship further enhanced by Defence exercise

More than 600 Sin­ga­pore Armed Forces (SAF) per­son­nel con­verged on the Waiou­ru Mil­i­tary Train­ing Area in Jan­u­ary for the annu­al Thun­der War­rior exer­cise.

Major Gen­er­al Keat­ing and Major Gen­er­al Singh in the Waiou­ru train­ing area (AW-12–0203‑1).

SAF deployed a 155mm Sin­ga­pore Light Weight How­itzer, along with oth­er weapons for the artillery train­ing exer­cise which was held in Waiou­ru for the 15th con­sec­u­tive time. Chief of Army, Major Gen­er­al Tim Keat­ing met with his Sin­ga­pore­an coun­ter­part Major Gen­er­al Ravin­der Singh dur­ing the exercise. 

MAJGEN Keat­ing said the exer­cise was an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to cement the SAF-NZDF rela­tion­ship, which was very impor­tant to both coun­tries, and he was con­fi­dent MAJGEN Singh and his par­ty left New Zealand with a pos­i­tive impres­sion of their ongo­ing inter­ac­tion with the New Zealand Army. The Sin­ga­pore­ans’ vis­it enhanced what is already a strong mil­i­tary and per­son­al rela­tion­ship, he said. 

“We are good mil­i­tary neigh­bours, and we dis­cussed issues of mutu­al con­cern, and mutu­al oppor­tu­ni­ties which may ben­e­fit both armies. New Zealand’s rela­tion­ship with Sin­ga­pore had devel­oped over a num­ber of decades since the incep­tion of the Sin­ga­pore­an Army. 

“The Sin­ga­pore­an Army has grown to be high­ly com­pe­tent and world class. It pro­vides sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, inno­va­tion and intel­lect to mil­i­tary chal­lenges and pur­sues excel­lence to pro­duce its mil­i­tary solu­tions. We are very com­fort­able oper­at­ing and train­ing along­side each oth­er, and I envis­age our rela­tion­ship will con­tin­ue to grow and devel­op as we meet chal­lenges in the Asia-Pacif­ic region in the future.” 

Dis­cus­sions were held dur­ing the exer­cise about the poten­tial for fur­ther inter­ac­tion with the New Zealand Army, and some mul­ti-lat­er­al activities. 

Source:
New Zealand Army 

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